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free Mill, 



THE GREATEST OP THE SEVEN WORLD-RIDDLES 



THREE LECTURES 



BY 
HUBERT GRUENDER, S.T. 

PROFESSOR OF SPECIAL METAPHYSICS, ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY 



ST. LOUIS, MO., 191 1 

Published by B. Herder 

17 South Broadway 

FREIBURG (BADEN) I LONDON, W. C. 

Germany 68, Great Russell Str. 



J* 



V X G^ 



NIHIL OBSTAT. 
Sti. Ludovici, die 1. Oct. 1910. 

R. J. Meyer, S. J. 

Praep. Prov. Missour. 

NIHIL OBSTAT. 
Sti. Ludovici, die 25. Nov. 1910. 

F. G. Holweck, 

Censor Librorum. 

IMPRIMATUR. 
Sti. Ludovici, die 25. Nov. 1910. 

►J* Joannes J. Glennon, 

Archiepiscopus Sti. Ludovici. 



Copyright, 1911, by Joseph Gummersbach. 



Becktold 
Printing and Book Mfg. Oo, 

ST. LOUIS, MO., U. S. A. 



gCU278824 



CONTENTS 

LECTURE I 



PAGE 

The Problem Stated . . i 



LECTURE II 
The Experimental Evidence of Free Will . . 30 

LECTURE III 

Free Will, the Indispensable Basis of Morality 
and the Necessary Complement of Man's 
Rational Nature 59 



FREE WILL, THE GREATEST OF 
THE SEVEN WORLD-RIDDLES 

Xecture I. £be problem Stated 

IN the famous address delivered on the 8th 
of July, 1880, before the Berlin Academy of 
Sciences, the avowed Materialist and Evolution- 
ist Du Bois-Reymond singled out seven prob- 
lems, for which, he said, Science has no answer, 
and which will forever remain insoluble riddles : 
" Ignoramus et ignorabimus ! " 

The problems are: (1) the nature of matter 
and force, (2) the origin of motion, (3) the 
origin of life, (4) the apparently designed order 
of nature, (5) the origin of sensation and con- 
sciousness, (6) the origin of rational thought 
and speech, (7) free will. 

These problems are not at all new ; they have 
claimed the attention of the master minds of 
all ages. In their correct and satisfactory solu- 
tion not only the. " scientist " of the 19th and 
20th century but each and every man is con- 
cerned. The answers to the problems form, in 
fact, what is styled in German " eine Weltan- 
I 



2 Free Will 

schauung," i. c, a synthetic and comprehensive 
view of the Universe. 

But ever since the name of " science " was 
restricted to the knowledge of what is meas- 
urable in terms of " matter and motion," ever 
since the " materialistic conception of the Uni- 
verse " replaced the " philosophy of the past," 
there has been a wholesale condemnation of 
all that the sages of old offered in answer to 
these problems, while the problems themselves 
have been turned into Riddles which admit of no 
rational solution. 

In the supposition that there is nothing but 
Matter and Motion, and that every problem must 
be solved in these very terms, without doubt the 
above problems must of necessity be riddles. 
But then so much the worse for the supposition 
which makes them so. For in the last analysis 
the discussion of the " seven World-Riddles " 
turns about Seven Plain Facts, which force them- 
selves upon the thinking mind and lead it to con- 
clusions which the philosopher may deepen by 
profound speculation, but which none the less are 
in their simplicity within the reach of every man. 
These conclusions, however, are in diametrical 
opposition to the " materialistic conception of 
the Universe " ; and thus instead of the " Old 
Philosophy " which admitted and defended the 
conclusions drawn from these plain facts, a sort 
of " Prohibition-Philosophy " has come into 



The Problem Stated 3 

vogue, whose motto is " Ignoramus et ignorabi- 
mus." Now styled " Agnosticism," now " Posi- 
tivism," now " Monism," it is best characterized 
by the term, " Infidel Philosophy." 

There was a time when Du Bois-Reymond 
thought that Analytical Mechanics could be ex- 
pected to offer (in the distant future, of course,) 
a rational solution to all the above problems 
including that of personal freedom. But later 
on , as he himself expressed it, the day of 
Damascus came for him, and lo ! he professed 
the utter futility of any solution when he pro- 
claimed the " seven World-Riddles " and em- 
phatically declared Free Will the greatest of 
them all. (Cf. Tilmann Pesch, S. J. Die gros- 
sen Weltrathsel, ed. 2, Vol. I., p. 21, note.) 

We are concerned with this greatest of the 
Seven World-Riddles, the Problem of Free 
Will. The much despised and much maligned 
Scholastics have a solution to offer, which I wish 
to propose for your consideration. Before en- 
tering, however, upon the subject itself, I wish 
to premise a few remarks on Scholastic Philoso- 
phy and its method in general. 

Scholasticism. 

Scholasticism is frequently regarded as a sys- 
tem of philosophy in which every question is 
settled by authority, whilst empirical inquiry is 
ignored or overruled by a priori speculations, 



4 Free Will 

and true progress is stifled by endless subtleties 
and hairsplitting distinctions. Possibly the 
term " Scholasticism " is associated in your 
minds with what is popularly conceived to be a 
typical question of the Schoolmen : how many 
angels can dance on the point of a needle? In 
fact, to many, " Scholastic " is a synonym for 
any or all of the following epithets : aprioristic, 
pedantic, rigid, dry, hairsplitting, opposed to 
empirical inquiry and what not. " Dry Goods 
and Notions " would probably be the pithiest 
definition of what Scholastic Philosophy is made 
to stand for. 

How far the charges involved in this popu- 
lar misconception of Scholasticism may be jus- 
tified in the case of some of its individual ex- 
ponents, I shall not discuss. But I shall try to 
present to you a concrete example of the 
Scholastic Method, by applying it to the ques- 
tion before us. Then you may judge for your- 
selves whether I am right in stating that Scholas- 
tic Philosophy, though deductive, not only does 
not discard empirical inquiry, but that experi- 
mental knowledge is its very backbone. 

Various Meanings of the Term: Freedom. 

To proceed logically, then, let us first define 
the terms involved in the issue and next de- 
termine the state of the question. This is typ- 
ical of the Scholastic Method, and would that 



The Problem Stated 5 

this feature had been retained by modern philo- 
sophical writers. 

As a mere glance at the Standard Dictionary 
Will show, the term Free is used in a great va- 
riety of meanings. In its broadest sense to be 
free means to be exempt from something, and 
according as this something may be an imperfec- 
tion or a perfection, freedom itself is either a 
perfection or an imperfection. For example, 
from time to time in the course of a scholastic 
year free days or holidays are granted. From 
the standpoint of the average college student, and 
especially the lover of sports, to be free from 
school is something most desirable, whilst the 
professors look on the same* freedom rather as a 
sort of necessary evil. 

But freedom is in a special sense applied to 
the activity of an agent, and then it denotes the 
immunity of this agent from some restraining 
influence. According to the diversity of the 
restraining influence from which the agent is 
immune, we distinguish three kinds of freedom, 
which should be clearly discriminated in order 
to understand the real point at issue. These 
are (1) freedom from external coaction, (2) 
freedom from necessity, (3) freedom from ob- 
ligation. These three kinds of freedom are also 
known respectively as: (1) freedom of Spon- 
taneous Action, (2) freedom of Choice or Ac- 
tive Indifference, and (3) freedom of Inde- 



6 Free Will 

pendence. The first and third kind of freedom 
need not detain us long; we shall explain them 
only in order to bring out in bolder relief the sec- 
ond kind, which is the real subject of our dis- 
cussion. 

Freedom of Spontaneous Action. 

Freedom of Spontaneous Action is the im- 
munity of an agent from external coaction. In 
this sense even the activity of brute animals 
is said to be free, namely in as far as their 
movements are not the result of external physi- 
cal force or in as far as their natural movements 
are not impeded by an opposing physical agency. 
Thus the wild animal of the prairies roams 
about freely, but a caged lion is, at least to a 
great extent, deprived of this freedom. 

Freedom of Independence. 

Freedom of Independence is the immunity of 
an agent from the moral obligation imposed by 
a lawful superior. In the strictest sense of the 
word this freedom is found only in God, who 
alone is absolutely independent, having no su- 
perior, and who is, moreover, the fount of all 
lawful authority. But in the wider and more 
common sense of the term, we all enjoy this 
freedom to a certain extent, for with regard to 
such actions as are neither commanded nor for- 



The Problem Stated y 

bidden by human or divine law, we are free 
and independent. 

Freedom of Choice. 

Freedom of Choice is freedom in the strict- 
est sense of the term, and is, as stated, the 
proper subject of the present discussion. It not 
only involves the immunity of an agent from 
external coaction, but the absence of that neces- 
sity which governs the activity of all material 
beings, whether they be inorganic matter, living 
organisms, or even sensitive beings as such. 
They are all governed in their operations by 
necessity ; a necessity without which the various 
departments of natural sciences, Physics, Chem- 
istry, Biology, Physiology, Sensitive Psychology, 
would lack their basic principle, viz., uniform- 
ity of nature. Now since freedom of choice in- 
volves the immunity of an agent from such ne- 
cessity or determination, the very concept of 
free-will has become a veritable enigma to ma- 
terialistic philosophy, which recognizes but one 
realm of nature, i. e., matter, and but one mode 
of action, i. e., that of matter. If the will of * 
man is free, then there exists a realm of nature 
distinct from and quite as real as matter; then 
the phantom of a spiritual soul, which was sup- 
posed to be relegated forever to the Limbo of 
oblivion to which the four elements, Phlogiston 



8 Free Will 

and the like, have been consigned, this phantom, 
I say, once more becomes a reality to be dealt 
with in dead earnest ; then the pet conception 
of monistic philosophy, that all departments of 
sciences, including Ethics and Rational Psy- 
chology, are in their last analysis nothing but 
particular applications or branches of Mechan- 
ics, is false ; then " Psychology without a soul," 
the greatest achievement of materialistic phi- 
losophy, needs a thorough revision — and who 
can foresee all the disastrous results to monistic 
ideas and ideals which would be implied in all 
this. No wonder, then, that Du Bois-Reymond 
considered " free will " the greatest of his seven 
world-riddles ; it is a veritable stumbling-block 
in the path of materialistic philosophy. 

But to return to the definition of our terms. 
Freedom of choice, as stated, involves immunity 
not only from external coaction, but also from 
necessity. Such necessity might be conceived as 
arising either from the very nature of the will or 
from the moral forces playing upon it. The 
sensitive appetite of both brute and man is by 
its very nature restricted to the sphere of sensi- 
ble and material good ; but the rational appetite 
or will is not so limited ; it extends to things of 
a higher and the highest order; it embraces the 
immaterial, the moral good, the heroic, the sub- 
lime. There is only one limitation set to the 
activity of man's will : it can only strive after 



The Problem Stated 9 

what is good; or at least apprehended as good. 
Man is not capable of a " motiveless volition/' 
but must of necessity in all his strivings have 
some good in view. Nor is he free to choose 
evil for the sake of evil. Even the suicide 
chooses the destruction of his own life not for 
the sake of the evil of self-destruction, but be- 
cause he regards death as a deliverance from 
what he considers a greater evil, i. e., under the 
appearance of good. The range, then, of man's 
rational striving is as wide as the range of the 
transcendental concept good: it is all-embracing. 
Free choice, however, in spite of this limit- 
less range, might be impeded, by the moral forces 
affecting man's rational appetite. The fascinat- 
ing influence of some good in particular might 
be so strong as strictly, for the time being, to 
overpower man's will. Such a possibility is by 
no means excluded. But then the will in striv- 
ing after such a good would not be free; the 
act would be an " impulsive volition," the mere 
resultant of the forces playing on the will, i. e., 
character plus present motives. We shall re- 
turn to this point when we come to speak of 
the conditions indispensable for actual freedom 
or free choice. 

The Time-honored Definition of Freedom of Choice. 

We are now ready for a strict definition of 
freedom of choice. The Schoolmen defined it 



io Free Will 

as " that endowment in virtue of which an agent, 
when all conditions requisite for the perform- 
ance of an action are given, can perform the 
action or abstain from it, can perform this ac- 
tion or that." (" Facultas, quae, positis omni- 
bus ad agendum requisitis, potest agere vel non 
agere, agere hoc vel illud.'') This time-honored 
definition, being in its last analysis nothing else 
than the pithy expression of what the unmis- 
takable testimony of man's consciousness at- 
tests as a fact of every-day experience, denotes 
that perfect dominion which our will possesses 
over itself, in so far as it can actively de- 
termine its own line of action. This peculiar 
endowment of man's rational appetite is, in the 
terminology of the Schoolmen, called " active 
indifference." Before we realize the full mean- 
ing of this phrase, it may be well to clear up 
certain popular misconceptions. 

Some Misunderstandings. 

There is only one human faculty for which 
we claim freedom of choice, namely, his rational 
appetite or will. My eye, when opened and 
brought into contact with any visible object by 
means of light, is not free. I may close it and 
thus make it impossible for me to perceive the 
beauties of a landscape ; but this does not argue 
liberty of eye, but liberty of that appetitive fac- 
ulty of mine which controls the use of my eye, 



The Problem Stated n 

namely, my will. The same must be said of 
the other cognitive faculties of man, the im- 
agination, memory and intellect. Though their 
operations are to a certain extent under the con- 
trol of the will, the faculties themselves are not 
free. Again the sensitive appetite, the passions 
of man and of all sentient beings, are not free. 
If an object pleasing to our senses is proposed 
to us, the sensitive appetite is drawn by natural 
necessity towards that object. Our likes and 
dislikes, as far as they are in our lower or sensi- 
tive appetite, are not free. This it is important 
to note; for we do not claim freedom for our 
sensitive appetency, but for our will or rational 
appetency. 

The existence of both appetencies in man is 
made manifest by the struggle we experience at 
times, when for reasons apprehended by our in- 
tellect we oppose the promptings of our lower 
appetency. This struggle has received a classi- 
cal expression in the Epistle of St. Paul to the 
Romans (VII, 23 sq.) : " But I see another law 
in my members, fighting against the law of my 
mind, and captivating me in the law of sin, that 
is in my members. Unhappy man that I am, 
who shall deliver me from the body of this 
death?" 

There is, I repeat, only one faculty of man 
which is endowed with freedom : our rational 
appetency or will. All the other faculties, with- 



12 Free Will 

out exception, are governed by the same neces- 
sity which characterizes the operations of an 
electrical apparatus. Bring about the contact 
of the conducting wires, press the electrical key, 
and the potential energy of the system will be 
released and manifest itself in the ringing of the 
bell, incandescence of the lamp, etc., provided, 
of course, the electrical apparatus be in order. 
Just so, bring the eye, the ear, etc., in proper 
contact with their objects, and they will act. It 
is needless to add, that in making this compari- 
son I do not mean to assert that " seeing," 
" hearing " and other cognitive or appetitive acts 
are only the release of stored-up potential me- 
chanical energy. Omnis comparatio nimis 
pressa clandicat. The point of comparison is 
only this : the eye and ear have no more choice 
in the matter of seeing and hearing than has 
the electrical apparatus in the ringing of the 
bell. 

It must be remarked, however, that the ac- 
tions of said faculties are sometimes denom- 
inated free. Thus we say, that we freely move 
our limbs, that we freely look at the objects 
around us. But freedom, thus predicated of 
the actions of the eye, arm, etc., is only an ex- 
trinsic denomination of these actions. It is not 
my arm choosing to move, but my will choosing 
to move the arm, and the same must be said of 
my eye, ear, etc. The movement of the arm is 



The Problem Stated 13 

only an object of free choice, and thus by an 
analogous use of the term extrinsically denom- 
inated free. My will alone chooses, and there- 
fore my will alone is really endowed with 
freedom or intrinsically denominated free. 

To what extent the actions of man's faculties 
other than free will itself can be the object of 
choice, i. e., how far our will can control the 
use of the other faculties, we do not discuss 
here. Still less do we enter upon the question, 
how our will controls the other faculties, es- 
pecially the bodily faculties. This is a ques- 
tion altogether distinct from the question of 
free will ; it regards the union of soul and body. 
We restrict our discussion strictly to the question 
of free will. 

Lastly, whilst claiming freedom for our ra- 
tional appetency or will, we by no means assert 
that its every act is free. What we claim is 
only this, that when all the conditions for a free 
volition are given, our will is endowed with the 
power to elicit the act or abstain from it, to 
choose among various objects intellectually ap- 
prehended as good. The Scholastics were most 
careful to distinguish between deliberate and 
indeliberate acts of the will, or what is the same, 
between "human acts" (actus humani) and 
" acts of man " (actus hominis) ; they went even 
into subtler distinctions, and that not for the 
sake of mere speculation, but to draw up prac- 
2 



14 Free Will 

tical rules, by which to settle one's conscience, 
v. g. after temptation or in the performance of 
important official functions, which, to be valid, 
must be free. We need not enter here into 
these distinctions and practical rules. For the 
purpose of our present discussion it suffices to 
emphasize our assertion that not every act of 
the will is free, because the will itself is free. 
For the actual exercise of freedom definite con- 
ditions must be fulfilled. What then are the 
conditions for free choice? 

Conditions for Free Choice. 

The first condition for free choice is the state 
of consciousness and attention. There are of 
course degrees of consciousness and attention ; 
hence there are also degrees of free choice. But 
if consciousness and attention are entirely want- 
ing, as for instance in sleep, there can be 
no question of free choice. When we are half 
asleep or in a state of drowsiness, conscious- 
ness and attention are almost entirely want- 
ing, and in that state there is at least not that 
degree of freedom which is necessary to make 
us gravely responsible for the violation of any 
law, human or divine. The same must be said 
of actions which we perform when distracted or 
engrossed in thought. For in that case not only 
some of our external actions are performed in 
a merely mechanical fashion, but even our mind 



The Problem Stated 15 

may return to old ruts of thoughts and desires 
which we repudiate most emphatically as soon 
as we become fully aware of them. 

The second and most important condition for 
free choice is intellectual deliberation, i. e., 
weighing the motives intellectually apprehended. 
Every free volition must be preceded by a judg- 
ment on the comparative goodness of the vari- 
ous objects of choice. In the language of the 
Schoolmen this condition was expressed by the 
statement, that a free volition must be preceded 
by an objectively indifferent judgment. 

An Objectively Indifferent Judgment. 

Though such terminology, unfamiliar as it is, 
may seem odd to readers of modern philosoph- 
ical works, still it is very precise and to the 
point. What, then, is meant by an " objectively 
indifferent judgment"? What is meant, is a 
judgment which proposes the pros and cons, 
the reasons for and against a definite line of 
action; which, in other words, proposes an ob- 
ject on the one hand as desirable, on the other 
as not necessary. An objectively indifferent 
judgment, therefore, involves two judgments, 
the one proposing motives for striving after, 
the other exhibiting motives for rejecting the 
object intellectually apprehended. 

Now it must be borne in mind, that every 
judgment of ours, referring to the desirability 



1 6 Free Will 

of a finite good, is ever, at least virtually and 
implicitly, dual in character, expressing motives 
for and against its choice. Take, for instance, 
the judgment stating the desirability of a trip 
to Niagara Falls. I cannot think of this trip, 
without thinking of the railroad ticket that will 
make the trip possible for me. But every judg- 
ment which has for its object the partial empty- 
ing of one's pocketbook, is for most mortals a 
reason against the action which requires such 
a depletion. But even suppose, a good friend 
of mine had procured or at least promised to 
procure a ticket for me, there are still deterrent 
reasons. Leaving out of consideration the nu- 
merous incidental expenses connected with such 
a pleasure trip, and the fact that leaving home 
and friends generally has something undesirable 
in it ; leaving out this, I say, or even supposing, 
that the very change of surroundings have posi- 
tive attractions for me, even then the judgment 
proposing the desirability of the trip is ob- 
jectively indifferent. For I cannot fail to see 
that such a trip, though desirable, is not neces- 
sary for my happiness : and this is a sufficient 
reason against the choice. 

No finite good brings unmixed bliss to me; 
every finite good has some evil connected with 
it, be it ever so little. A walk is good, but it 
requires exertion; study is still better, but it in- 
volves the overcoming of the principle of in- 



The Problem Slated ij 

ertia, which in common parlance we call lazi- 
ness. Virtue is most desirable, but it involves 
the checking of our passions. While we per- 
ceive the desirability of what is either pleas- 
urable or intellectually attractive or morally 
good, we cannot fail to see the evils connected 
with it. This is what we mean, when we say, 
that every judgment of ours referring to a finite 
good is objectively indifferent, at least implicitly 
and equivalently. The perception of even the 
infinite good, God Himself, is in this life ob- 
jectively indifferent, owing to our imperfect 
knowledge of God on the one hand and, on the 
other, the difficulty of checking our unruly pas- 
sions. 

And right here we touch the deepest root of 
our freedom, namely, our intellectual nature 
with its capacity for abstraction. If on a snow- 
white wall there is only a little blemish, I 
may turn my attention to it and neglect the rest. 
All finite things are of their very nature limited ; 
and be they ever so fascinating, there is surely 
some defect somewhere marring their beauty, 
and with our intellect, capable of abstraction, we 
can as easily neglect these imperfections as turn 
our attention upon them. The infinite good, 
God, is in Himself goodness and beauty itself 
without the least alloy. In Himself, I say; for 
to our imperfect vision here below, which is, 
moreover, dimmed by the fascinating and deter- 



1 8 Free Will 

ring influences of the things of earth, He is not 
a good without alloy. Hence it is, that even in 
the face of death man may turn from his God 
and his last end to the vilest pleasures of earth. 
There you have the deepest root of freedom: 
our intellectual nature, capable of abstraction, 
capable of objectively indifferent judgments con- 
cerning absolutely anything that may be the ob- 
ject of choice. So much for the conditions of 
free choice. 

Active Indifference of the Will. 

We must now explain more fully the power of 
choice itself. Power of choice, complementary 
as it is to the objective indifference of the judg- 
ment, was called by the Schoolmen Active Indif- 
ference of the Will. This term again, abstruse 
though it may sound to ears unaccustomed to 
Scholastic terminology, gives in a nutshell what 
is meant by power of choice. 

Indifference is opposed to determination; ac- 
tive is opposed to passive. Indifference when 
predicated of the will may denote that disposi- 
tion which we call apathy, and is popularly ex- 
pressed in the words " I don't care." Thus a 
merchant may be indifferent in the matter, 
whether Mr. X or Mr. Y is elected a member of 
the school board; but Messrs. X and Y are not 
indifferent at all. To me it is indifferent, 
whether the debtors of the same merchant have 



The Problem Stated 19 

paid their bills or not; but to the merchant it is 
by no means an indifferent matter, that Mr. Slow 
of Slowtown has not yet settled his bill due Jan. 
1, 1909, and Mr. Prompt of Promptville accom- 
panies all his orders with cash. Now, when we 
say that the power of choice is indifference of 
the will, we do not take indifference in this 
sense. Power of choice is compatible with the 
greatest habitual likes or dislikes, with the 
greatest actual propensity towards, as well as 
aversion against, a certain object of choice. As 
long as the agencies which produce propensity 
or aversion, namely, character, concupiscence, 
fear, scientific or moral convictions, do not nullify 
the two conditions of freedom, they do not de- 
stroy the power of choice. Note my statement! 
I did not say, they do not influence my choice, — 
indeed they do, — but they do not destroy or 
nullify the power of choice. 

What, then, is meant by indifference, as we 
take it here? Indifference in general is that 
property in virtue of which a faculty is not de- 
termined to one line of action. As applied to 
the will, it is that endowment by which it is not 
restricted to strive after a certain object in par- 
ticular. Indifference, thus defined, though 
necessary, is only a part of the definition of 
free will, and this part of the definition is also ap- 
plicable to other faculties which are not endowed 
with freedom. Thus my eye is not restricted to 



20 Free Will 

the representation of what I actually see now, 
the hall and its audience ; your ears are not re- 
stricted to the perception of the combination of 
sounds which are the vehicle of my thought in 
this particular sentence ; but your ears are also 
capable of perceiving the sounds of the next sen- 
tence, just as my eye is ready to perceive scenes 
altogether different. 

What, then, is the peculiar indifference of free 
will? It is expressed by the qualifying term 
" active." Free will is actively indifferent, 
whereas all the other faculties of man are pas- 
sively indifferent. Eye and ear, though indif- 
ferent in themselves, are determined to a partic- 
ular line of action by a cause from without. 
The waves of light which strike my eye here and 
now, the waves of sound that strike your ears 
here and now, determine the peculiar actions of 
your ears and my eyes at the present moment; 
and as they are passive in receiving this de- 
termination, their indifference is aptly called 
passive. But free will determines itself. When 
various conflicting motives solicit our will in va- 
rious directions, when pleasure and duty try in 
turn to gain the approval of our will, the will it- 
self can determine its own attitude towards the 
motives intellectually apprehended. It can re- 
ject or accept the pleasure, it can reject or ac- 
cept the duty. The determination, then, to a 



The Problem Stated 21 

particular line of action originates in the will 
and hence its indifference is called Active. 

Active Indifference Versus the Parallelogram of Forces. 

Let us pause here for a moment to consider, 
how diametrically opposed this power of self- 
determination is to the laws of Mechanics which 
govern the activity of material things. A simple 
illustration will make tins clear. When a body 
is pulled in one direction with a force of 5 
pounds, and in another with a force of 3 
pounds, you can determine beforehand by the 
parallelogram of forces in which direction it 
will go. If " willing " were indeed in its last 
analysis nothing but " a mode of motion," a pe- 
culiar kind of molecular vibration in some nerve- 
center of the grey matter of the brain, and if the 
" moral force " of conflicting motives, acting on 
the will, could be weighed in pounds, then it 
would be most assuredly possible to predetermine 
by something analogous to the parallelogram of 
forces, which way the will is going to be inclined. 
Then, of course, our will would not be free. To 
have something like self-determination or active 
indifference, we must discard the parallelogram 
of forces and conceive the body, thus acted upon, 
to take its own attitude and determine its own 
direction of motion. We wonder no longer, that 
Du Bois-Reymond was in sheer despair over the 



22 Free Will 

problem bow to fit the stubborn fact of free will 
into Mecbanics. 

Cutting the Gordian Knot. 

A simple solution of the conundrum was sug- 
gested by Haeckel, who is less particular about 
facts. The fanatic of Monism resorted to the 
same expedient which he made use of when 
facts did not bear out his pet theory of his monkey 
ancestry. In the name of " science " he manu- 
factured facts and falsified others after the prin- 
ciple: If your theory does not fit the facts, fit the 
facts to the theory. So he ruled out the incon- 
venient fact of personal freedom. " Freedom of 
the will is not an object for critical scientific in- 
quiry at all, for it is a pure dogma, based on an 
illusion, and has no real existence." (Riddle of 
the Universe, p. 64.) Consequently he crossed 
out the last and greatest of the world-riddles of 
Du Bois-Reymond ; for that, which does not ex- 
ist, cannot possibly constitute a riddle. 

But facts are stubborn things and cannot be 
dealt with in such a fashion ; we shall, however, 
return to this in due time, when discussing the 
" experimental evidence " of personal freedom. 

Misrepresentation, a Stronger Weapon. 

Other adversaries of free will have had re- 
course to a stronger weapon : misrepresentation. 
Distort the doctrine of free will to a monstrous 



The Problem Stated 23 

caricature, set up a straw-man as the aim of your 
attack, and in Don Quixote fashion you tri- 
umphantly vanquish the enemy. 

An illustration of this kind of attack is the 
article on free will in the Encyclopedia Ameri- 
cana. Not only is the problem itself misrepre- 
sented, as for instance when the writer describes 
free will as a power, " of willing without mo- 
tive " and a free volition as " an uncaused first 
act," etc., but the history of the question is also 
falsified. We read after an introduction, which 
shall engage our attention later on : " The over- 
whelming weight of reason,. however, for 2,500 
years, from the Greek predecessors of Aristotle 
to Jonathan Edwards, has won reluctant ac- 
ceptance to the doctrine of universal determin- 
ism, or in theological phrase, of necessitarian- 
ism: a chain of causation extending to all things 
and back to infinity, since no uncaused first act 
or idea can be fancied except as part of the 
First Cause of the universe. It is of course 
never claimed that all acts are volitional or all 
volitions deliberate, but only that the mind at 
will can interject uncaused determinations 
among the caused. It is evident, however, that 
to assume the possibility of uncaused acts is to 
consign the universe to chaos and abolish the 
reign of law; that only on the theory of strict 
and unbroken causation (or " invariable se- 
quence ") can we reason at all concerning phe- 



24 Free Will 

nomcna ; that the mind must follow the same 
law as other entities, and has no power, nor 
could even be endowed with such by omnipotence, 
of willing without motive — that is, without 
a cause itself the resultant of an endless series of 
other causes. Indeed, as Prof. Huxley puts it, 
for the mind to cause itself implies that it has 
anteceded itself, which is absurd: the first men- 
tal action must have been part of the chain of 
causation, which surrenders the whole case, as 
there is no spot where it can be imagined that it 
was able to throw down the ladder by which 
it had climbed, and cut loose from causes into 
a region of caprice." * 

From what we have said, when explaining the 
terms involved in the question, it is clear that we 
maintain no such absurdity as that the will has 
the power " of willing without motive." We in- 
sisted, that the will in all its strivings must of 
necessity have some real or at least apparent 
good in view ; but what is apprehended as good 
is thereby a motive. We insisted further, that 
every free choice must be preceded by an ob- 
jectively indifferent judgment, proposing at least 
virtually and implicitly motives both for and 
against a choice. When, therefore, conflicting 
motives are proposed to the will, and the will 
allows one to prevail in preference to others, 

* Here, as in other quotations, the italics are often my 
own. 



The Problem Stated 25 

the will does not choose without a motive, but 
it chooses among motives. 

Still more unjustifiable is it to represent a de- 
liberate volition as an " uncaused act " or even 
" an uncaused first act." A deliberate act has 
a cause, both efficient and final. The efficient 
cause of a deliberate volition is the faculty en- 
dowed with freedom; the final cause is the mo- 
tive, which the will allows to prevail. Hence 
self-determination does not imply, that " the mind 
caused itself and thus must have anteceded it- 
self " ; there is not the slightest trace of such an 
absurdity to be found in our. doctrine. The will 
in the actual exercise of free choice has, there- 
fore, no need of " throwing down the ladder by 
which it had climbed, and cut loose from causes 
into a region of caprice." 

When the author says, " that the mind must 
follow the same law as other entities," we answer 
that we are dealing with a question of fact; but 
we would remind him, that he confounds two 
laws, namely, the principle of causality and 
the law of uniformity of nature, the former 
being an analytical principle applicable to what- 
ever begins to exist, the acts of free will in- 
cluded; the latter a synthetic principle, found 
by induction, and just as universal as induction 
establishes it. If, therefore, experience itself 
teaches us that our will is not subject to the law 
of uniformity of nature or " invariable sequence," 



26 Free Will 

as the author expresses it, then we must acknowl- 
edge tzeo distinct realms of nature, the one ma- 
terial, the other immaterial. 

We might cite other examples of misrepre- 
sentation, as, v. g., that of Dr. Bain, who de- 
scribes free will as " a power that comes from 
nothing, has no beginning, follows no rule, re- 
spects no time and occasion"; or that of Prof. 
Stout, to whom a free volition is a sort of " Jack- 
in-the-box " (cf. Alaher, Psychology, p. 416), etc. 
But we are not charging upon wind-mills, and 
thus we unceremoniously dismiss such phrases. 

Raising a Cloud of Metaphysical Dust. 

When reading the introduction to the article 
on Free Will in the Encyclopedia Americana, I 
am forcibly reminded of a passage in Cicero's 
speech in defense of Milo. In that part of the 
speech which is known as Narratio, he is to state 
the facts of the case, which was in plain and 
simple language : Milo and his servants waylaid 
Clodius and killed him. Now Cicero was most 
assuredly a master of elegant periods, which 
though elaborate are always clear and transpar- 
ent. Here, however, clearness was precisely 
what Cicero did not desire. This is his account 
of the simple fact: 

" He meets Clodius in front of his farm, about 
the eleventh hour, or not far from it. Immedi- 
ately a number of men attack him from the 



The Problem Stated 2J 

higher ground with missile weapons. The men 
who are in front kill his driver, and when he had 
jumped down from his chariot and flung aside his 
cloak, and while he was defending himself with 
vigorous courage, the men who were with 
Clodius drew their swords, and some of them 
ran back towards his chariot in order to attack 
Milo from behind, and some, because they 
thought that he was already slain, began to at- 
tack his servants, who were behind him ; and 
those of the servants who had presence of mind 
to defend themselves, and were faithful to their 
master, were some of them slain, and the others, 
when they saw a fierce battle taking place around 
the chariot, and as they were prevented from get- 
ting near their master so as to succor him, when 
they heard Clodius himself proclaim that Milo 
was slain, and they thought that it was really 
true, they, the servants of Milo (I am not speak- 
ing for the purpose of shifting the guilt onto the 
shoulders of others, but I am saying what really 
occurred), did, without their master either com- 
manding it, or knowing it, or even being present 
to see it, what every one would have wished his 
servants to do in a similar case." (Transl. by C. 
D. Yonge, B. A., Select Orations, p. 194.) 

Here is the Americano's presentation of the 
simple problem, whether man's will has the power 
to choose among various lines of action, intel- 
lectually proposed as good. 



28 Free Will 

" Free Will. This question is properly divided 
into two sections, that of the metaphysical basis 
and the doctrinal application ; but the latter has 
so deeply affected the reasonings on the former, 
that it is almost impossible to separate them." 

" The metaphysical problem is unique, from 
its presenting at the outset an irreconcilable con- 
tradiction between the phenomena of conscious- 
ness and the operations of reason. In this re- 
spect it is different from the insoluble problems 
of time and space. . . . Consciousness ap- 
pears to show us at every moment that we can 
dictate our actions mostly and our thoughts very 
largely ; reason tells us that each follows on other 
phenomena, from whose invariable relation of 
precedence we characterize them as cause and 
the former as effect. Consciousness tells us that 
our will is the active agent in producing the phe- 
nomena which immediately succeed it; reason 
tells us that this fancied agency is an illusion 
and itself a part of the chain of sequences, and 
that the apparent relation is because, as Hobbes 
says, the so-called will is the last wish of the 
mind before determining. But what causes the 
determination? This involves the problem of 
the nature of the will as before, as well as of the 
' coupling-pin ' by which, if a reality, it acts on 
matter; if not a reality, the reason why a mental 
resolve is invariably followed by a physical move- 
ment or mental conception. Of the coupling-pin 



The Problem Stated 29 

no acceptable theory has ever been framed; the 
best explanation of the association of will and 
act, supposing the former an illusion, is still 
Spinoza's, that they are twin phases of the same 
ultimate reality, and of necessity change coinci- 
dently. But this leaves it still unexplained why 
our consciousness makes the will not coincident 
with the act, but invariably its predecessor: we 
do not will and act simultaneously, but in succes- 
sion." 

This is what I call raising metaphysical dust 
to obscure a simple question of fact. In due 
time we shall return to this 'passage and analyze 
a few of its statements; for the present its very 
bewildering confusion serves only to illustrate 
another mode of attack on free will. 

The Question. 

After this somewhat distracting digression let 
us formulate the question to be answered. Here 
it is: Is man's rational appetency or will en- 
dowed with the power of choice among various 
lines of action intellectually apprehended as 
good ? Or in another form : Has man's will the 
power to determine which of the various mo- 
tives intellectually proposed is to prevail and thus 
actively to determine its own course of action? 
If Yes, man's will is free ; if No, man's will is 
not free. Now determinists answer this question 
in the negative; we answer it in the affirmative, 

a 



Xecture ML £be Experimental 
jevi&ence of jfree WMU 

IN order to substantiate our position with re- 
gard to Free Will we adduce three lines of 
argument, which may be aptly called the experi- 
mental, the moral and the teleological. Before 
proceeding, however, I wish to illustrate the dif- 
ference of procedure in these three arguments. 

Three Methods of Proof. 

In proving the existence of anything I may 
adopt three methods of proof. I may be able to 
bring the object, whose existence is in question, 
before you, so that by your own experience you 
will realize its existence ; and this is the experi- 
mental proof. Thus to prove the existence of a 
timepiece within the four walls of this room, I 
simply produce a watch and without a syllogism 
of any kind the existence of a timepiece is 
proved. Now this method we adopt in the ex- 
perimental proof. There we appeal to our ex- 
perience of freedom. 

But I may not be able to bring the object in 
question before you ; what methods of proof are 
left to me? If I can show to you that there ex- 

3° 



The Experimental Evidence 31 

ists something which is the effect of the object 
in question, and that this effect could not have 
come into existence except by the causality of 
the object in question, then I have proved the 
existence of the object itself. Thus, for exam- 
ple, from the regularity of class lectures and 
recitations in this college, you may rightly infer 
the existence of some timepiece, which regulates 
the division of time in our every-day routine. 
Thus I make use of what is called an a-posteriori 
proof; I conclude from the effect to the cause. 
This method we adopt in the moral proof. Man 
is a moral being, capable of virtue and vice, un- 
der obligations of various kinds, restricted in his 
actions by laws, both natural and positive. Now 
law and obligation, virtue and vice, etc., suppose 
free will. Therefore if moral law and obliga- 
tion, virtue and vice, etc., are something real and 
not merely subjective concepts a la Kant, then 
their supposition also, namely, free will, is real; 
in other words, man's will is free. 

But even if I may not be able to produce either 
the object itself or its effects, there is still an- 
other method of proof left. I may be able to 
show the cause, the root or source of the ob- 
ject in question, something which necessarily 
either produces or calls for the object in ques- 
tion, something which would be essentially in- 
complete and serve no purpose without the ob- 
ject in question. This method is called an 



32 Free Will 

a-priori proof, because it proceeds from the 
cause to the effect, from the root to its comple- 
mentary parts, from the source to what flows 
from it. Thus some kind of timepiece is most 
assuredly an integral part of a meteorological ob- 
servatory, complementary to the other instru- 
ments to be found there. From the mere fact, 
then, that there exists in this college a meteor- 
ological observatory, furnished with all the other 
necessary instruments, you rightly infer that you 
will also find a timepiece there, although you 
have never seen the timepiece. It must be re- 
marked, however, that this particular form of 
a-priori proof does not necessarily and in every 
instance amount to a demonstration, but at times 
furnishes only a probability more or less great. 
To be a demonstration, it must be evident, that 
those in charge of the observatory had not only 
the means to finish their work, but could not 
possibly have left it unfinished. 

Now this method of proof we follow in the 
teleological argument. We consider the root of 
free will, man's intellectual nature, that endow- 
ment of his by which he is distinguished from 
the rest of visible creation. We show that man's 
intellectual nature calls for freedom of his will, 
so that, if man's will were not free, his intel- 
lectual nature were in vain, nay more: a veritable 
torture to man. This proof receives additional 



The Experimental Evidence 33 

force in the supposition of an all-wise and all- 
loving God. 

In proving man's free will we are, therefore, 
in the happy position to adopt all the methods 
possible to prove it ; and we claim, that all these 
proofs, not only collectively but also individually, 
are strict demonstrations, so that, when properly 
proposed, their force cannot be denied by anyone 
who is not prejudiced and who is willing to ex- 
amine them thoroughly. We maintain that if 
any one says that he is not free, he speaks 
against his better knowledge, just as the sceptic 
does. We maintain furthermore that free will 
cannot be denied without denying some of the 
fundamental truths which form the necessary 
basis of all human knowledge. If, after due 
consideration of the evidence which our argu- 
ments furnish, the verdict is to be that man's 
will is not free, then we must declare absolute 
bankruptcy not only in philosophy but also in 
natural science; even our common sense with- 
out which we cannot perform the most ordinary 
actions in our intercourse with other men must 
go. Our position, then, with regard to free will 
is a very strong one: we claim not only proba- 
bility for our doctrine ; we are not satisfied with 
the greatest probability; we assert it to be not 
only a good working hypothesis, but a truth be- 
yond doubt. Now to the proofs in detail. In 



34 free Will 

this lecture, however, we shall restrict ourselves 
to the experimental evidence for free will. 

The Testimony of Consciousness. 

I realize by the unmistakable testimony of con- 
sciousness, that very often it is in the power of 
my will to choose among various actions which 
I have motives to perform. Let us substantiate 
this statement first by an example of an action, 
to the performance of which we attach little im- 
portance. 

After having given, for instance, a few hours 
to study in my room, I realize it would be good 
and desirable to interrupt my work for a few 
moments. I am sure I shall feel better disposed 
for work again after a few moments' rest. On 
the other hand, I realize that this interruption 
of work is by no means necessary for me, at least 
not at this precise moment ; I may easily put off 
the interruption for a while longer. Further- 
more, I realize that this change, though desir- 
able even at this very moment, is not only not 
necessary, but in a way very undesirable. I am 
just ready to jot down an argument which at 
least in its present form may escape me if I di- 
vert my mind by an interruption. As a matter 
of fact, all motives considered, I come to the con- 
clusion that it is preferable to postpone the in- 
terruption. 

There you have the objectively indifferent 



The Experimental Evidence 35 

judgment, proposing the comparative desirability 
of two courses of action : the principal condition 
of free choice. I am fully conscious of the com- 
parative desirability of the actions in question, 
I pay explicit attention to it : there you have the 
other condition of free choice. 

Now neither you nor even I myself can fore- 
tell with absolute certainty what I am going to 
do in such circumstances. I realize by the clear 
and unmistakable testimony of consciousness that 
my action in such circumstances depends on an 
element strictly incalculable , namely, on free 
choice. I realize that it is in the power of my 
will to determine which motive is to prevail. 

I interrupt my study ; now the weaker motive 
has prevailed. But I realize at the same time, 
that without any change in the perception of the 
motives I can change my mind ; and at times we 
do, as a matter of fact, change our minds in such 
actions, and that without any previous change in 
the cognition of motives. 

Experiences like this every one has. Note 
that I do not say that all of our every-day ac- 
tions are thus performed freely; at times they 
certainly are, namely, whenever the conditions 
for free choice are given, i. e., whenever we give 
the motives prompting our actions that attention 
and consideration necessary for free choice, and 
that is not such an unusual occurrence. 



36 Free Will 

At the Crossing of Ways. 

When an important action of our life is in 
question, we do not, as a rule, act impulsively, 
but stop to consider the proposed action most 
carefully; we weigh the pros and cons and con- 
sult others in the matter. Now this considera- 
tion of motives and this consultation of others 
has no other source than the intimate perception 
of our freedom ; in fact, this very consideration 
is of itself an exercise of our freedom. Im- 
agine an electrical apparatus, when all conditions 
for action are given, when the conducting wires 
are connected by the electrical key, — I say, im- 
agine the electrical apparatus stopping and con- 
sidering whether or not the bell is to ring. But 
we are able to stop and consider; and by the 
unmistakable testimony of consciousness we re- 
alize that it rests with us to determine what 
course of action we are going to take. In such 
circumstances we would not listen for a moment 
to the metaphysical a-priori speculations of any 
one who would try to make out that we are not 
free. We know better. No argument can dis- 
prove what we experience, namely, that we are 
masters of the situation, that at the crossing of 
the various paths of life the decision rests with 
ourselves. 



The Experimental Evidence 37 

An Objection. 

But, you may say, do we not predetermine our 
future actions and predict what line of action 
we are going to take in certain circumstances? 
Indeed we do ; but this does not militate against 
free will ; it is rather an added argument for it. 
For, when we predict our future actions, we re- 
alize full well that the future is not unfolded 
with absolute certainty before our vision ; we do 
not claim to be either prophets or sons of 
prophets. We predetermine and predict our fu- 
ture actions, because we know by experience that 
the future event will depend on our free choice. 
We know furthermore that it will rest with us 
to change our mind; many a resolution of ours 
concerning our future conduct has failed when it 
came to actually carrying it out. Thus the 
predetermination and prediction of our future 
actions is in reality nothing else than the expres- 
sion of our present resolve concerning our future 
conduct, and this implies the further resolve not 
to change our mind. This further resolve will 
indeed have its moral force at the moment of 
action, but is in turn subject to change. Now 
such prediction of our future actions is not only 
compatible with freedom, but is meaningless ex- 
cept in the supposition that we are free and are 
conscious of it at the time of such prediction. 



38 Free Will 



Reproach and Remorse. 

We reproach ourselves for certain actions of 
the past. In considering this fact we seem to 
come near the moral argument ; still we are not 
arguing as yet from ethical notions, but we insist 
here on our perception of freedom and are still 
considering the direct experimental evidence for 
freedom. It is, then, an undeniable fact, that we 
feel remorse for certain actions of the past and 
reproach ourselves for them. But we do not re- 
proach ourselves for an action that was beyond 
our control. We may and do feel sorry for 
doing something we could not help ; but we do 
not and cannot reproach ourselves for it. The 
very fact of self-reproach supposes another fact, 
namely, that we perceived our freedom at the 
time of the action for which we now reproach 
ourselves. The sorrozv of an unhappy child, who 
has accidentally killed his father, and the bitter 
self-reproach of a repenting parricide : these sen- 
timents are as far apart as the poles. Where 
lies the difference? In the perception of free- 
dom. The parricide knows that his act was free, 
and this is the worm that dieth not. 

No Fact More Evident — No Fact More Frequently 
Expressed. 

There is no fact more evident to us than that 
of personal freedom. We distinguish most 



The Experimental Evidence 39 

clearly between actions of ours which are beyond 
our control and those which are subject to our 
free choice. No one ever dreamt of claiming 
control over the process of digestion or over the 
beating of his heart or over all the internal acts 
of his mind. When the proposition 2X2 = 4 
is proposed to our intellect, we can by no effort 
of our will deny our assent ; we may use the ex- 
ternal symbols, both written and spoken 12X2 
= 5, but we cannot assent to such a proposition. 
We have, then, the clear perception of internal 
acts of the mind which are beyond our control. 
We know that the uprisings of our lower appe- 
tite precede our deliberation and often continue 
in spite of all efforts to banish them ; we know 
that even our rational appetite may be and is at 
times carried away to indeliberate desires; but 
we know just as clearly that we need not ap- 
prove of such desires, that we must not " con- 
sent " to them, that we must not make them our 
own by deliberately yielding to them. Our free 
will is, as it were, stationed in an impregnable 
citadel. The uproar of the temptation may be 
ever so great and threatening; but our foes can- 
not take possession of the citadel. They may 
make a breach in the outer walls of our sensitive 
nature, they may create even the greatest dis- 
turbance within the walls ; but if they are to enter 
the sanctuary of free will, we ourselves must 
open the doors and surrender the keys. 



40 Free Will 

No fact is more frequently expressed by us 
than that of personal freedom, both in ourselves 
and in others. What else do such phrases of 
politeness mean, which are so often on our lips : 
" if you please," " allow me," " consent," " favor 
me " ? We say that we agree, volunteer, grant ; 
and thus there are numerous other expressions 
implying freedom. Of course, from the mere 
frequent use of the terms " free " and " free- 
dom " it would be unlawful to argue directly, for 
the simple reason that these terms have a great 
variety of meanings, as I took great pains to ex- 
plain in the first lecture. But indirectly and by 
inference we may; for we must not forget that 
in the last analysis all the various meanings of 
freedom have some reference to personal free- 
dom and lose all force, if personal freedom is 
denied. 

An illustration will make this clear. The word 
" healthy " is used in various meanings ; we ap- 
ply it not only to man, but also v. g. to medicine 
and to the complexion of the face. Man really 
is healthy ; medicine causes or maintains health, 
and the complexion of the face reveals or mani- 
fests health. But eliminate the first meaning 
of the term, then all the other uses of it lose their 
significance. Just so the primitive and pri- 
mary meaning of the term " freedom " is that of 
personal freedom or free will ; all the other mean- 
ings of the term either suppose or manifest per- 






The Experimental Evidence 41 

sonal freedom or denote some analogous and 
imperfect imitation of personal freedom. 

There is nothing of which men are more jeal- 
ous and proud than personal freedom, and noth- 
ing is more frequently made the subject of eulogy 
by orator and poet alike than personal freedom. 
Men will jeopardize all their earthly possessions, 
even life and limb, in defense of personal free- 
dom. All glory in the fact, that " man is free, 
though born in chains," as Schiller has it. 

Answers of Materialists to the First Argument. 

Now what do determinists, and in particular 
materialists, say to this argument? Some of 
them, untrue to the first principle of the positive 
and exact sciences, enter into metaphysical spec- 
ulations concerning the possibility of freedom. 
They are guilty of that very charge which they 
so unjustly urge against the Schoolmen. In 
everything else they bid us to consider the " that " 
and leave the " how and why and wherefore " 
alone. But in this case the " that " is a very in- 
convenient factor to deal with, whilst the " how 
and why " offers to them seemingly a shelter and 
hiding place. It most assuredly looks ludicrous 
to see how men in this age of exact science try 
to dispute and destroy facts by metaphysical spec- 
ulations and Hegelian hocus pocus. Suppose we 
followed the same method when there is question 
of a simple fact which we perceive with the outer 



42 Free Will 

senses ! Let me adapt the metaphysical specula- 
tions by which the writer on free will in the 
Encyclopedia Americana tries to obscure the di- 
rect experimental evidence of freedom, to the 
question, whether or not such entities as dogs 
exist. 

An Adaptation in Parody of a Profound Metaphysical 
Speculation. 

" The question of the existence of dogs is prop- 
erly divided into two sections, that of the 
metaphysical basis and that of the doctrinal ap- 
plication, how namely in practical life we are to 
conduct ourselves with regard to dogs; but the 
latter question has so deeply affected the reason- 
ings on the former that it is almost impossible to 
separate them. The metaphysical problem is 
unique from its presenting at the very outset 
enigmas, which have baffled the greatest lights 
in exact sciences : the enigma of life, the enigma 
of consciousness and sensation in this peculiar 
entity which we call dog. The evidence of the 
senses seems to show us, that such living and 
sentient entities are running about in the streets 
of cities mostly and in country places very 
largely; reason tells us, that life and conscious- 
ness in such entities are irreconcilable with the 
first principles of human thought, the laws of 
Mechanics, and hence something next to a con- 
tradiction in terms. The evidence of the senses 



The Experimental Evidence 43 

seems to show us, that dogs really vegetate, some 
in fact enormously, that they see, hear and at 
times bark angrily; reason tells us that such 
fancied entities, refusing as they do to be treated 
as mere mechanical devices, must of necessity be 
an illusion. The problem, then, of the existence 
of dogs is, strictly speaking, insoluble. The over- 
whelming weight of reason, however, from the 
Greek predecessors of Aristotle to the contempo- 
raries of Jonathan Edwargls, has won reluctant 
acceptance for the doctrine that such entities as 
dogs really do not exist. For, as the laws of 
Mechanics apply to absolutely everything in Na- 
ture, it is evident that if dogs are a reality, they 
must follow the same laws as other entities, and 
have no power, nor could even be endowed with 
such by omnipotence, of performing actions not 
adequately expressible in terms of matter and 
motion." 

The Tail Wagging the Dog. 

That is what the Greeks called a " hysteron 
proteron " and what we would call the tail wag- 
ging the dog. For from the mere fact that 
something really exists, we know that it is possi- 
ble, and it is preposterous in face of the evident 
fact to argue to its non-existence from the im- 
possibility of squaring this fact with our pre- 
conceived notions concerning the nature of 
things. 



44 Free Will 

But the assertion that the perception of free- 
dom is an illusion, is too serious to allow it to 
pass with a joke. We must look a little more 
closely into the significance of this assertion and 
realize the disastrous consequences which it en- 
tails. 

Disastrous Consequences. 

The perception of freedom, then, has not been 
denied; but it is claimed that it is an illusion. 
Now if our intellect can be deceived in the per- 
ception of evident facts of consciousness, if the 
first source of human knowledge, consciousness, 
is subject to illusion, then we must despair of 
all human knowledge. For if our intellect is 
unable to discern truth from falsehood in spite 
of objective evidence, what criterion remains? 
If one of the sources of human knowledge, con- 
sciousness, leads to error, what guarantee have 
we that the same is not the case with the other 
sources of knowledge ? What guarantee is there 
that our sense-perception is free from error, that 
our ideas are objectively real, that by reasoning 
we can arrive at valid conclusions, that historical 
testimony is worth anything in the acquisition of 
truth ? If one source of knowledge is unreliable 
and deceiving, why not the others ? 

But there is still another consideration which 
makes the denial of facts derived from self -con- 
sciousness more destructive of all human knowl- 



The Experimental Evidence 45 

edge than the denial of truths gathered irom 
any other source of knowledge. Sense-percep- 
tion, for instance, is no source of knowledge un- 
less I am conscious of it; similarly, reasoning is 
no source of knowledge, unless I am conscious 
of the premises and their force. If, then, con- 
sciousness can deceive in spite of objective evi- 
dence in the perception of freedom, why not in 
the perception of other internal present facts, 
which are the necessary condition for gathering 
knowledge from other sources? Hence by 
the denial of freedom, which consciousness so 
clearly and unmistakably attests, we arrive at 
the absurdity of absolute scepticism. The value 
of the experimental argument for freedom, 
therefore^ is beyond doubt. 

A Subterfuge. 

Other adversaries of free will, realizing the dis- 
astrous results which are entailed in the charge 
of " illusion," admit the value of the testi- 
mony of consciousness, but raise the ques- 
tion, whether men rightly interpret the contents 
of this testimony. We grant that when we 
are inattentive, we may mistake an indeliber- 
ate desire for consent ; especially persons inclined 
to scruples and devoid of clear concepts con- 
cerning moral conduct, are liable to such mis- 
takes ; but they really never have " evidence " ; 
being notorious " confusionarii," they mistake 

4 



46 Tree Will 

the mere semblance for " evidence." To say, 
however, that every man in every instance 
commits this blunder of false interpretation, is 
a mere subterfuge, which we have forestalled 
by the very manner in which we have proposed 
the argument. 

We have seen that in the examples adduced by 
us, consciousness attests in every detail what 
we have claimed after formulating our question 
most precisely. In our examples we insisted 
on the presence of the conditions for freedom; 
we then analyzed our mental attitude towards 
the motives apprehended, and saw that what 
consciousness attests is an internal act of the 
will by which we actively determine which of 
the conflicting motives is to prevail : and that 
is Free Choice. We insisted further that we 
distinguish most clearly between deliberate and 
indeliberate acts. In face of such clear testi- 
mony it is positively absurd to question whether 
or not we interpret rightly the contents of such 
testimony. 

Mistaking Logical Possibility for Power of Free 
Choice. 

Professor Alexander (quoted by Fr. Maher, 

S. J., Psychology, p. 413) explains to us in de- 
tail how we come to make such a false inter- 
pretation. " Which motive is chosen," lie says, 
" is perfectly fixed and dependent upon the 



The Experimental Evidence 47 

character, which cannot choose otherwise than 
it does." But whilst we are thus inexorably 
determined to one line of action we realize the 
logical possibility of another line of action, and 
mistaking this mere logical possibility for the 
power of free choice we come to think that 
we were " free to do otherwise." Here are his 
own words : " Given any act, a different act 
is conceivable, there is a logical alternative to 
everything. But so far as the agent believes 
that he, with his character and under his cir- 
cumstances, could have acted otherwise, he con- 
fuses the feeling that he chooses with this mere 
logical possibility" (/. c). 

Now we most assuredly do nothing of the kind. 
Such logical possibility of being determined to 
another line of action is found in every faculty 
of ours, not only in the cognitive faculties, the 
outer and inner senses as well as the intellect, 
but also in the appetitive faculties, the sensitive 
and rational appetency. But we never con- 
found this logical possibility with freedom; on 
the contrary we know full well, that in spite of 
such logical possibility our act of vision, hear- 
ing, etc., is under given definite circumstances 
beyond our control, that the acts of the lower 
appetency are not free. Even when our will is 
carried away to " impulsive volitions," as surely 
happens at times, we realize such logical possi- 
bility, but we most clearly know, that we exer- 



48 Free Will 

cised no power of choice. When, on the other 
hand, we choose freely among various lines of 
action, we realize something altogether distinct 
from " the mere logical alternative to everything 
else," we perceive unmistakably the perfect 
dominion we possess over the acts of our will 
under such circumstances : and this perfect do- 
minion is what we have called " active indiffer- 
ence " or power of free choice. 

The Sensation of a Man Pulled in Two Directions. 

Still more unsuccessful is Professor Alexan- 
der, when he offers the following explanation 
of our consciousness of freedom. He says: 
" Pull a body to the right with a force of twelve 
pounds, and to the left with a force of eight ; 
it moves to the right. Imagine that body a mind 
aware of the forces which act upon it; it will 
move in the direction of that which, for what- 
ever reason, appeals to it most; and in doing 
so it will, just because it is conscious, act of 
itself, and will have the consciousness of free- 
dom." (Quoted by Fr. Maher, S. J., /. c, p. 
407.) 

It is very hard to see whether the forces " ap- 
pealing " to this " body-mind " are meant to be 
material forces whose " pull " can be measured 
in pounds, or moral forces, i. c., conflicting mo- 
tives intellectually apprehended. The two are 
just as dexterously mixed up in the illustration 



The Experimental Evidence 49 

as are body and mind. In the case of moral 
forces it is most assuredly wrong that our will 
always " moves in the direction of that which, 
for whatever reason, appeals to it most," as we 
have seen, when analyzing our experiences in 
this regard. But we shall return to this when 
examining a similar sweeping assertion of Jona- 
than Edwards, viz., " Man always follows the 
greater seeming good." Still further removed 
from truth is the statement, that "just because 
we are conscious" of the forces appealing to 
us, " we have the consciousness of freedom " ; 
for we are conscious of, and distinguish most 
clearly between deliberate and indeliberate acts. 
If, however, material forces are meant, I 
would suggest that somebody volunteer to have 
the experiment tried on himself, and that he give 
us an accurate account of the sensation which 
he has when pulled in two directions. The prin- 
cipal point to be attended to is, that the subject 
of the experiment be conscious of the forces 
acting upon him; for it is claimed that "just 
because he is conscious" of them, he will come 
to think that he moves freely when pulled. So 
let him take an accurate look at his stout friend 
who is going to do the pulling to the right, and 
at his lean friend who is going to do the pulling 
to the left. Now I cannot speak from personal 
experience in the matter, but I venture to pre- 
dict that, when the pulling begins, the subject 



50 Free Will 

of the experiment will have the very uncom- 
fortable sensation of being pulled, and that by 
no degree of conscious attention to the forces 
pulling him will he conjure up the feeling of 
moving freely. 

tcmpora, O mores! To what lengths of 
absurdity men will go, in order to explain away 
an inconvenient fact ! 

The Evidence of Consciousness Too Crude. 

The attitude which the late Professor James 
of Harvard takes on the question of free will 
in his Principles of Psychology (Vol. II, p. 569- 
579) may be briefly synopsized as follows. We 
may view the question experimentally, scientifi- 
cally, and morally. Viewed experimentally, the 
question is insoluble, as " we are thrown back 
. . . upon the crude evidences of introspec- 
tion . . . with all its liabilities to decep- 
tion " (/. c, p. 572). Viewed scientifically, the 
evidence is in favor of determinism ; for free 
will is irreconcilable with " the great scientific 
postulate, that the world must be one unbroken 
fact, and that prediction of all things without 
exception must be ideally, even if not actually, 
possible" (/. c, p. 573). In other words, Pro- 
fessor James emphasizes the same difficulty 
which led Du Bois-Reymond to characterize 
free will as the greatest of the seven workl-rid- 
dles. Viewed morally, however, the evidence is 



The Experimental Evidence 51 

in favor of freedom ; for " it is a moral postulate 
. . . that what ought to be can be, and that 
bad acts cannot be fated, but that good ones 
must be possible in their place " (/. c, p. 573). 

What are we to do ? " When scientific and 
moral postulates war thus with each other and 
objective proof is not to be had, the only course 
is voluntary choice, for scepticism itself, if sys- 
tematic, is also voluntary choice . . . Free- 
dom's first deed should be to affirm itself" 

{I C; P- 573). 

Professor James must be commended, first of 
all, for the fact that he upholds the doctrine of 
free will, although on ethical grounds only. For 
the rest there are a great many things to be 
said with regard to the views expressed. At 
present, however, we are concerned only with 
the charge that experimental or " objective proof 
is not to be had," as the evidence of introspec- 
tion is too crude. 

Going Back to a Chapter of Critical Logic. 

Why is the evidence of introspection too 
crude? It is absolutely the only means we have 
to acquire the knowledge of present internal 
facts. Of course, if too much is expected from 
this evidence, it is most assuredly too crude; 
and that is true not only of the evidence of in- 
trospection, but also of the evidence of the 
senses. In Criteriology or Critical Logic it is 



52 Free Will 

pointed out that all we can expect from these 
two sources (internal and external experience) 
is no more and no less than the knowledge of 
present facts, internal or external respectively. 
We must not expect knowledge as to the intrin- 
sic nature of these facts, of the " why and how " 
of these facts; if we do, then all experimental 
evidence is too crude. 

Consistently All Experimental Evidence Too Crude. 

I find myself touching accidentally the flame 
of a candle with my finger, and before I have 
time to reflect, I withdraw my finger. Or I see 
the leg of a frog stimulated by an electrical cur- 
rent, and observe a similar phenomenon. Am 
I not capable of testifying to the bare facts, 
just as I have expressed them, on the evidence of 
internal and external experience? The very 
possibility of experimental sciences, and in par- 
ticular of Physiology, should have to be denied, 
if such evidence were to be rejected as being too 
crude. There is in fact nothing crude about this 
evidence, if no more than the knowledge of the 
bare facts is expected from it. 

Of course these phenomena are instances of 
" reflex movements," an external stimulus being 
transmitted from the periphery by afferent 
nerves to a nerve-center in the spinal column, 
and thence reflected by the path of efferent 
nerves to the muscle, which in consequence con- 



The Experimental Evidence 53 

tracts. If this knowledge is expected from the 
evidence of the senses in the simple observa- 
tion, mentioned above, then it is most assuredly 
too crude ; for it does not furnish us this knowl- 
edge. To arrive at this, we must make a more 
detailed experimental research with the help of 
the dissecting knife and the microscope. But 
we must bear in mind that in the end it is not 
the dissecting knife and the microscope that fur- 
nish us the data for a clearer insight into the 
reflex mechanism; it is again the evidence of 
the senses which testifies to what the micro- 
scope reveals. If the evidence of the senses in 
the first simple observation was too crude, it is 
not less crude in the latter observations. If 
further research is to be possible at all, we must 
beware of calling any experimental evidence too 
crude. 

Now just as clearly as I perceive that in with- 
drawing my finger I acted without any delibera- 
tion, in fact without any volition of any kind, 
just so clearly, I say, I perceive that certain 
acts of my will depend on my free deliberation. 
Of course the evidence of introspection must 
not be expected to furnish what is the fruit of 
much further speculation, namely, a clear insight 
into the nature of free choice. This being un- 
derstood, we most emphatically deny that there 
is anything crude about the evidence of intro- 
spection. Or, if you insist on calling it crude, 



54 Free Will 

it is not thereby of less value. The rock which 
forms the foundation of an edifice is also crude, 
but not therefore to be rejected. The simple 
evidence of introspection which furnishes us the 
bare fact of freedom, is one of those rocks on 
which the sciences of Psychology and Ethics 
rest, and cannot be rejected because of its crude- 
ness without bringing these edifices to ruin. 
You might just as well say that the evidence 
of introspection is too crude to establish the 
fact that we are thinking and willing at all. 

Professor James realizes as much, for in this 
very chapter on Free Will (p. 570) he refers us 
back to a very subtle discussion in the first vol- 
ume of his Psychology, which culminates in the 
question, whether or not we think at all, or, more 
pointedly and scientifically, whether or not 
thought processes are going on ; to be quite pre- 
cise : whether or not we must eliminate both the 
" Thought " and the " Ego," which in the form 
of the personal pronoun " I " we are liable to 
put in front of the verb " think," or in a nut- 
shell : whether or not it thinks at all. 

The more I become acquainted with modern 
Philosophy, the more I begin to doubt, whether 
or not " it thinks at all " ; at any rate it does not 
seem to think very much. You will find it par- 
donable, if such discussions arouse the humor- 
ous sensibilities of one who, like myself, is ac- 
customed to the much despised "Metaphysics of 



The Experimental Evidence 55 

the Schoolmen " ; and if I may be allowed to 
read between the lines, Professor James him- 
self, I think, must have chuckled and smiled 
when he penned them. I quote only the con- 
clusion reached in the chapter referred to (Vol. 
I, p. 304) : " Speculations like this traverse 
common sense; and not only do they traverse 
common sense (which in philosophy is no in- 
superable objection) but* they contradict the 
fundamental assumption of every philosophic 
school. Spiritualists, transcendentalists, and 
empiricists alike admit in us a continual direct 
perception of the thinking activity in the con- 
crete. However they may otherwise disagree, 
they vie with each other in the cordiality of 
their recognition of our thoughts as the one sort 
of existent which skepticism cannot touch." He 
adds in a note : " The only exception I know of 
is M. J. Souriau, in his important article in the 
Revue Philosophique, Vol. XXII, p. 449. M. 
Souriau's conclusion is 'que la conscience n'existe 
pas! ,: Then he continues in the text : " I will 
therefore treat the last few pages as a paren- 
thetical digression, and from now to the end 
of the volume revert to the path of common- 
sense again. I mean by this that I will continue 
to assume (as I have assumed all along, espe- 
cially in the last chapter) a direct awareness of 
the process of our thinking as such, simply in- 
sisting on the fact that it is an even more in- 



56 Free Will 

ward and subtle phenomenon than most of us 
suppose. At the conclusion of the volume, 
however, I may permit myself to revert again to 
doubts here provisionally mooted, and will in- 
dulge in some metaphysical reflections suggested 
by them." 

You may ask in sheer bewilderment : Where 
are we? What has this to do with the ques- 
tion of free will? Professor James, in discuss- 
ing the crude evidences of introspection for 
freedom has indeed been leading us into what 
the Germans have aptly styled the "Ash-Grey." 
It is high time for us to call a halt, if indeed 
we claim a right to philosophize at all concern- 
ing anything whatever. That we exist and 
think, is a primitive truth which requires no 
demonstration and admits of none on account 
of its overwhelming immediate evidence. Our 
doctrine of free will must indeed be a strong- 
hold if it cannot be denied or even questioned 
without shaking the very foundations of all hu- 
man knowledge, without jeopardizing the primi- 
tive truth of our own existence as thinking be- 
ings. 

A More Fundamental Difference of Opinion. 

One more word, and we are done with the dis- 
cussion of Professor James' charge, that the evi- 
dence of introspection is too crude. To Profes- 
sor James the question of free will is ultimately a 



The Experimental Evidence S7 

question of the reflex mechanism, " a system 
of arcs and paths." We read on p. 575 (Vol. 
II) : " Where there is effort just as where 
there is none, the ideas themselves which fur- 
nish the matter of deliberation are brought be- 
fore the mind by the machinery of association. 
And this machinery is essentially a system of 
arcs and paths, a reflex system, whether effort be 
amongst its incidents or nob!' 

If we do not restrict our question of freedom 
to the internal acts of the will, as we have done, 
but consider also the control our will exerts 
over the bodily organs, we can indeed not ignore 
the " system of arcs and paths," i. e., the reflex 
mechanism. But the acts of the will them- 
selves, as also those of the intellect, are not a 
part of this " system of arcs and paths," for 
they are of an altogether immaterial nature. 
But here we touch a more fundamental dif- 
ference of opinion, which we cannot discuss 
now; we must reserve that for another lecture, 
in which the relation between brain and mind 
will engage our attention. For the present it 
may suffice to say that Professor James can ad- 
vance no argument in favor of such a supposi- 
tion, except from preconceived notions of Ma- 
terialism, which are contradicted by facts, and 
in particular by the fact of freedom which con- 
sciousness SO' unmistakably attests. 

The proof of free will, then, from the evi- 



58 Free Will 

dence of introspection, stands in spite of all the 
efforts made to nullify it or to belittle its value. 
We have laid so much stress on the experi- 
mental evidence, because in our era of positive 
sciences there is nothing that appeals to men 
more than experimental evidence, and because it 
is this very consideration of the stubborn fact 
of free will that has made materialists char- 
acterize it as the greatest of the world-riddles. 
As I have said: So much the worse for the 
supposition which makes it a riddle. 



Xecture ill. free mitt, tbe In&ts* 

pensable Baste of flDoralit^ anb 

tbe IRecesear? Complement 

of fiDan's IRational 

mature 

IN this lecture we shall consider the second 
and third proof for freedom, namely, the 
moral and the teleological proof. The discus- 
sion of these arguments will reveal the fact that 
the doctrine of free will branches into the other 
departments of philosophy, especially Ethics, 
and most intimately affects our social life. 
Law, obligation, right and wrong, justice and 
many other kindred notions acquire a different 
meaning according as the doctrine of free will 
is accepted or rejected. The phase of the prob- 
lem, then, which is before us must appeal to 
every serious student and every thinking mind. 

The Moral Proof. 

The dignity of man over all the rest of visible 
creation consists in his moral nature. Any sup- 
position, therefore, which cuts the root of man's 
moral nature, is absurd. But the denial of free- 
dom cuts the root of man's moral nature. 
Therefore the denial of freedom is absurd. 

59 



60 Free Will 

If man is not free, what difference is there 
between what we call morally good and bad acts ? 
If man is determined beyond control in all his 
actions, what is there to warrant such a distinc- 
tion? He is necessitated to the former as he is 
to the latter. The greatest hero, then, in the 
moral world is no better than the greatest crimi- 
nal; both are inexorably determined to their ac- 
tions. I say the former is no better than the 
latter, and the latter no worse than the former, 
understanding these terms in the sense of mor- 
ally better and morally worse. For there is in- 
deed a difference, but only the difference which 
exists between a cripple and a well-built speci- 
men of humanity. A cripple calls for com- 
miseration, not blame. Just so there can be only 
pity, not blame for the criminal. The perfectly 
shaped man may command admiration, but he 
does not deserve praise. Just so there can be 
no praise for the virtuous man, but at best ad- 
miration. He is indeed adorned with what we 
are accustomed to call virtues ; but he cannot 
help it. Only freedom differentiates a criminal 
and a saint in the moral order. 

Moral Positivism. 

This connection between free will and the 
moral nature of man is so evident that some 
determinists not only admit it reluctantly, but 
make it a point to deny and disprove the in- 



The Basis of Morality 61 

trinsic difference between what we call morally 
good and bad. Thus, for instance, Hobbes. In 
Psychology he is an adversary of free will ; in 
Ethics, an exponent of what is known as 
" Moral Positivism." 

A high sounding term : moral positivism, an 
outgrowth only of the more far-reaching em- 
piricism, is the name of the doctrine, that to the 
satisfaction of those who hold it, has done away 
once for all with all true morality, obligation, 
right, and wrong. Moral positivists indeed keep 
these names, but they destroy the reality denoted 
by them. 

According to Hobbes, then, there is really no 
intrinsic difference between morally good and 
bad deeds, but the distinction is due to positive 
human legislation. Others trace it to custom, 
education, or to some other positive fact; but 
all are agreed that there is no intrinsic differ- 
ence. With some indeed moral positivism has 
developed into a sort of moral "Nihilism,." 
Thus, for instance, Haeckel does not hesitate 
to assert : " The moral order exists no more 
in nature than in the lives of men, no more in 
natural history than in the history of culture. 
The cruel and unceasing struggle for existence 
is the true spring of the blind history of the 
world." (Quoted by Fr. Cathrein, Moralphilo- 
sophie, Vol. I, p. 141.) This is what we 
should naturally expect from the out-and-out 

5 



62 Free Will 

Materialist and Evolutionist. Nietzsche like- 
wise uses the most shameless and truly cynical 
language. Somehow or other Nietzsche has 
come to be looked up to as a sort of demigod 
and his every utterance is considered an oracle. 
The fact is, that for the last eleven years of 
his earthly existence he was not in a normally 
conscious state, and to judge from his specula- 
tions it is doubtful, whether he ever was. His 
doctrine on the point at issue is best character- 
ized by a word of his own coinage. He con- 
siders himself an " over-man," to whom " the 
whole of moral science is a courageous and con- 
tinued falsehood." (Quoted by Fr. Cathrein, 
/. c, p. 143.) 

In order, therefore, to show the strength of 
the moral argument for free will, I must insist 
more on the reality of moral notions than on the 
necessary connection of these notions with free 
will. I must enter, then, on a purely ethical ques- 
tion, all the more, since the ideas of Haeckel, 
Nietzsche and others like them, have found their 
way into our popular magazines, even into the 
literature of fiction, and have thus become a 
deadly poison for the reading public. 

A Purely Ethical Question. 

The question is briefly this: Are there any 
actions which are morally good or bad prior to 

any human or divine law, so that some actions 



The Basis of Morality 63 

are bad not only because they are forbidden, 
but forbidden because they are bad? We read- 
ily admit that there are numerous actions which, 
indifferent in themselves, are bad only because 
they are forbidden; but besides these, we claim, 
there are others, which are forbidden because 
they are bad. The law forbidding them does 
not make them bad, but they are bad prior to 
any law and to any other positive fact, as for 
instance custom, education, and the like. We 
claim the same for some morally good actions, 
namely, that they are good prior to any law or 
any other positive fact. 

Let it suffice here to adduce one argument. 
If it is only the forbidding law that makes ac- 
tions morally bad and the prescribing law that 
makes actions morally good, it follows that there 
cannot be a bad law. For a law can only be 
bad, if it prescribe what is bad. But this is im- 
possible, as from the very supposition of Moral 
Positivists no action is bad prior to any law. 
It is the law, and the law only that makes ac- 
tions good or bad; good if it prescribe them, 
bad if it forbid them. How then can there be 
a bad law? It follows, furthermore, that if a 
law prescribe, for instance, parricide or per- 
jury, that action is good. 

You may say that this conclusion is not in- 
tended by Moral Positivists. Possibly or prob- 
ably not; but it certainly follows from their 



64 Free Will 

principle, namely, that it is the prescription of 
the law that makes actions good. If you say 
that no law could possibly make parricide or 
perjury morally good, you surrender this funda- 
mental principle of Positivism, you admit that 
there are actions which of their own intrinsic 
nature and prior to any positive law are morally 
good or bad. 

The same reasoning may be applied to cus- 
tom or education as the source of the distinction 
between morally good and bad. There cannot 
possibly be a bad custom or a bad system of edu- 
cation ; for according to this form of moral Posi- 
tivism it is custom or education that makes all 
actions good or bad. 

Now let us sum up the moral argument for 
freedom. Making use of the foregoing discus- 
sion, we may give it the following syllogistic 
form : There is an intrinsic difference between 
morally good and bad actions. But this differ- 
ence is null and void, unless man is free (as 
we have shown before). Therefore man is 
free. 

Another Attack on the Argument. 

Before proceeding further we must at least 
mention another attack made on this argument. 
Whilst Moral Positivists deny our major propo- 
sition, there are others who deny the minor, 
which is otherwise generally conceded as self- 



The Basis of Morality 65 

evident, namely, that there is a necessary con- 
nection between free will and morality. The 
futility of such an attempt, however, we shall 
not consider now ; we shall do so after we have 
proposed another form of the moral argument, 
that from obligation. 

Argument from Obligation. 

In its merest outlines this argument is as fol- 
lows : Obligation is not a mere conventionality, 
not a mere name, but a reality; man is really 
and truly obliged in conscience to perform cer- 
tain actions, and to avoid others. But this obli- 
gation supposes that man is free. Therefore 
man is free. 

No one will thank me if I state or attempt to 
prove the contradictory of my major proposi- 
tion. Suppose I were to say, that debtors must 
not pay their bills, that those with whom you 
have entered on a bilateral contract must not 
perform their part of the agreement. If I were 
seriously to attempt to prove such a statement, 
destructive as it is of social relations among 
men, by saying that obligation in conscience is 
an old-fashioned medieval notion, I think there 
is no one, however little he may care for medieval 
notions, who would agree either with my argu- 
ment or my statement. I take it then that man 
has real obligations : of justice, as in the cases 
cited; of charity, as for instance towards father 



66 Free Will 

and mother; of gratitude to all benefactors. I 
am sure I need not enter on a detailed proof of 
this assertion. 

But — and this was my minor proposition — 
obligation supposes that man is free. Here is 
the force of our argument. If man is not free, 
he is necessitated in his actions, they are beyond 
his control. Now if this be so, of what use is 
it to preach to him of obligation and responsi- 
bility? You might just as well preach to a doll. 
You cannot say that a criminal ought to avoid 
crime, unless he can avoid it. — Now what do 
determinists say to this second form of the 
moral argument? 

Jonathan Edwards Again. 

I shall let the writer on free will in the 
Encyclopedia Americana give the answer. An 
Encyclopedia is a source of information for 
many; and, if it contains errors, it is good to 
point them out. Hence it is that I give so much 
consideration to this article in the Americana, 
The writer of this article is, as stated before, an 
adversary of free will. By way of objection he 
proposes substantially our argument, namely that, 
if man is not free, he is an automaton, and if 
an automaton, incapable of obligation. — This is 
his answer: "In this extreme form the fallacy 
is easily apparent. The will, as Jonathan Ed- 
wards has put it, always follows the greatest seem- 



The Basis of Morality 67 

ing good." (Allow me to state in parenthesis, 
that Buridan had attempted this form of attack 
long, long before him ; but has he or Jonathan Ed- 
wards ever proved such a statement?) " But its 
estimate of good is not an unvarying thing, but 
constantly changing with experience and reason. 
Now moral rules . . . form a part of this 
good, and therefore become new causes which 
determine the will : and whatever may have been 
the causation which has determined the evolving 
and enforcing of the moral law, it is nevertheless 
a portion of the environment which acts on the 
mind." 

" The Will Always Follows the Greater Seeming Good." 

Now when Jonathan Edwards says that the 
will always follows the greater seeming good, 
this statement, if taken in its generality (" al- 
ways"), is either false or tautological; but if it 
be reduced to the limits of truth which it really 
contains (substituting " frequently " for " al- 
ways "), it proves nothing against free will. Let 
us substantiate these two assertions. 

The greater seeming good stands either (1) 
for the more pleasurable, or (2) for the more 
rational (moral) good. Or if it is to denote 
either of the two, it may be (3) what is more in 
accord with our habitual inclination, or (4) what 
is more in keeping with our present actual in- 
clination. But the present actual inclination may 



68 Free Will 

be either deliberate or indeliberate ; and thus the 
fourth meaning of the term breaks up into two 
more meanings, namely (5) the good more in 
accord with our present actual indeliberate in- 
clination, and lastly (6) that in accord with our 
actual deliberate inclination or choice. 

Now in all meanings of the term except the 
last, the statement of Jonathan Edwards is false, 
because it is contradicted by experience. For it 
is an incontestable fact of experience, that men 
do not always follow the more pleasurable, as it 
is only fair to state that not all men are Epi- 
cureans. Nor do men always follow the more 
rational good, for then there would be no sin 
and vice. Again it is wrong to say, that men 
always follow their greater habitual inclination, 
whether in the direction of virtue or of vice ; 
for many a sinner has reformed his evil ways 
and broken the strong ties of an inveterate habit, 
just as more than one moral hero has been 
known to fall and act against his acquired habits 
of virtue. Considering the fourth meaning of 
" the greater seeming good " we must beware of 
an equivocation, as I have pointed out before. 
If the term denotes " what is more in accord 
with our actual indeliberate inclination," it is 
wrong to say that men always follow this good. 
For there have never been wanting those who un- 
der the greatest stress of temptation have adhered 
to the path of virtue, just as it is a sad fact that 



The Basis of Morality 69 

there have been and are men who resist the most 
potent influences of religion and virtue and 
harden their hearts against the strongest in- 
spirations of divine grace. It is precisely this 
fact, on which we put so much stress when ana- 
lyzing the experimental evidence for freedom, 
namely, that as a matter of fact, men do not 
always follow the line of least resistance, that 
their actions are not always the mere resultant 
of character plus present motives. 

In all meanings, therefore, excepting the sixth 
and last, of " the greater seeming good," the 
general statement of Jonathan Edwards, that 
men always follow the greater seeming good, 
is false, because it is negatived by experience. 

If we take it, however, in the sixth and last 
meaning, namely, that men always act in accord 
with their actual deliberate inclination, then the 
statement is absolutely and universally true ; but 
it is a mere tautology, meaning that men always 
deliberately incline towards that towards which 
they deliberately incline, or to use another 
phrase: that motive prevails which prevails. 
So much for the first part of my answer. 

Now let us reduce the proposition of Jona- 
than Edwards to the limits of the truth which it 
undoubtedly contains. It is true that we often 
(not always) follow the " greater seeming 
good " in the sense that we follow the " line of 
least resistance," whichever of the various al- 



jo Free Will 

ternatives that be. But — and this is a point of 
prime importance — while following the greater 
attraction, we realize most clearly that we do so, 
at least frequently, as a result of our own free 
choice, fully aware that we can change our reso- 
lution (and often do so) without any change in 
the perception of the " greater seeming good." 

Which is the "Greater Seeming Good"? 

To take a practical example. A physician, 
just ready to go to the theatre, receives a sum- 
mons to a person dangerously sick. Here you 
have pleasure and duty trying in turn to gain 
the approval of the will. Which is the " greater 
seeming good"? Or again a young physician, 
only too anxious to gain a clientage, is asked to 
perform a surgical operation which is ethically 
of a rather doubtful or positively bad charac- 
ter. Which is the " greater seeming good " ? 
Is it determined by the antecedents of the 
choice, character plus present motives, or does 
the choice determine the " greater seeming 
good " ? 

We answer, on the infallible testimony of in- 
ternal experience in such like circumstances, 
that our choice is not inexorably determined by 
its antecedents, that our choice does not nec- 
arily follow the line oi least resistance. 
Frequently, in fact, our choice lies along the line 
of greatest resistance. The physician chooses, 



The Basis of Morality yi 

and what he chooses is " the greatest seeming 
good," no matter whether this is the line of least 
or greatest resistance. 

The external action is indeed preceded and 
determined by the practical judgment {judicium 
ultimo-practicum) : " This is the greater seem- 
ing good," but the internal act of choice is 
not preceded and inexorably determined by such 
a judgment; on the contrary, this judgment is 
determined by the act of choice, so that " the 
greater seeming good " really means " this is 
my choice." 

Buridan's Ass. 

If we were really restricted to the " greater 
seeming good " in the sense of " the line of least 
resistance," then in numerous instances we should 
be doomed to inactivity much like Buridan's 
ass, who (sad to relate) died between two bun- 
dles of hay, one as good and as near as the 
other. Our discussion of free will would of 
course be incomplete, unless we introduced 
somehow this familiar figure, even though some 
violence be needed. (By way of parenthesis, 
however, it is well to remark, that it is not pre- 
cisely asinine, but human liberty, we are dis- 
cussing; hence the sad story of Buridan's ass 
need not detain us longer.) 

Suppose you have taken a. brisk walk into the 
country. The exertion was perhaps greater 



72 Free Will 

than you had anticipated. You decide to re- 
turn, and you are looking for the shortest and 
easiest way home, you are positively looking 
for the "greater seeming good" in the sense 
of " the line of least resistance." But there is 
no one to tell you, and you are unable to make 
out for yourself; you cannot settle that trouble- 
some question: "Which is the greater seeming 
good?" Now if it be really true that "man 
always follows the greater seeming good," that 
he is restricted to do what he understands to be 
the " line of least resistance," then you are in 
this particular instance welded to the spot. Are 
you? Solvitur ambulando. You would be a 
fool, were you to wait for the necessary infor- 
mation as to the " greater seeming good " in 
the sense of Jonathan Edwards. 

Take another case. A friend has sent you 
as a Christmas present half a dozen boxes of 
fine cigars, each containing a different brand, 
one better than the other. You are — let us 
suppose — a smoker, and on this festive oc- 
casion looking for the best smoke possible un- 
der the circumstances. But there is no one to 
tell you which brand is the best ; besides " de 
gustibus non est disputandum " ; and you your- 
self really do not know which box contains the 
best cigars. You are again confronted by the 
bothersome question: "Which is the greater 
seeming good ? " 



The Basis of Morality 73 

Now do you mean to say that you are doomed 
to wait until you have satisfied your mind as to 
the " greater seeming good " in the sense of 
Jonathan Edwards, before you can enjoy your 
smoke? The phraseological doctrine of Jona- 
than Edwards may be in its proper place in a 
class-room of Physiological Psychology, but it 
does not fit into practical life. It would be 
easy to multiply such examples. And what do 
they teach? That the moral argument for free- 
dom is left untouched by the objection of Jona- 
than Edwards. 

"Men are the Result of their Environment." 

But, you may say, is it not true that men are, 
as a matter of fact, the result of their environ- 
ment? A proverb has it — and proverbs are 
always the crystallisation of common experience 
and consent : " Tell me with whom you asso- 
ciate, and I will tell you who you are." What 
else does this mean but that men are indeed the 
result of their environment, that they are really 
not free? With the virtuous you will be vir- 
tuous and with the wicked you will be wicked. 
Are not in very truth many of our criminals 
but " victims of circumstances " ? 

There is no doubt a good deal of truth in 
this, but we must not exaggerate this truth. 
" Men are the result of their environment." 
The flaw in this proposition is first of all its 



74 Free Will 

sweeping universality. It would not be diffi- 
cult to cite a great number of instances to the 
contrary. There is many a lily among the 
thorns and many a black sheep in a good flock; 
these are decidedly not the result of environ- 
ment. Sacred as well as profane history is full 
of such examples, and our own experience fur- 
nishes many more; but they are lost sight of in 
such sweeping assertions. 

" Men are the result of their environment." 
What does this mean and what else can it mean 
in the face of the facts to the contrary and in 
face of the unmistakable testimony of our own 
consciousness which avers that we are free, but 
this that our environment exerts a great in- 
fluence on us both for good and for evil? And 
this is true ; but it does not militate against the 
freedom of the will. In stating the problem, 
we took great pains to point out that it is one 
thing to be influenced by motives, and another 
thing to be inexorably deter mined by them. 
The first we readily admitted and even empha- 
sized against such absurd misrepresentations of 
deliberate choice as " willing without motive " ; 
the latter we found to be an undeniable fact, 
attested by our own consciousness and the unan- 
imous consent of mankind. 

" Men are the result of their environment." 
A number of our actions are no doubt the re- 
sult of our environment, in the sense of de- 



The Basis of Morality 75 

terminism, and such actions are not free. Be- 
cause the will is free, it does not follow that its 
every act is free. In fact, the limitations of 
freedom are many, especially when there is 
question of the purely external actions, in which 
the " reflex mechanism " and the question of 
" instinct " in man cannot be ignored. But it 
is not our purpose at present to pursue such 
limitations in detail, especially as the intricate 
problem of " brain and mind " also enters 
largely into the discussion. Even if only at 
times we really and truly exercised freedom, 
our thesis would stand. Of course there is a 
wide field here for exaggeration in both direc- 
tions, and it is not within the scope of this lec- 
ture to point out the golden mean of the truth. 
For the purposes of our present discussion it 
suffices, that the sweeping assertion : " Men are 
the result of their environment " is false in the 
deterministic sense, because contradicted by 
facts; and that the grain of truth contained in 
this generalization — be it ever so great — does 
not militate against freedom, but only makes 
for a right understanding of our doctrine of free 
will. 

Moral Statistics. 

The argument against free will drawn from 
Moral Statistics is considered by many de- 
terminists to be one of their most powerful 



y6 Free Will 

weapons, but in its last analysis it comes to 
that which we have been just now considering. 
Thus, for instance, Buckle, who according to 
Fr. Maher (/. c, p. 421) "used to be the classi- 
cal author on this line of attack," claims, that 
the actions of men " vary in obedience to the 
changes in the surrounding society " (quoted 
/. c), which is only another expression for the 
sweeping assertion: "Men are the result of 
their environment." " Suicide," according to 
Buckle, " is merely the product of the general 
conditions of society, and the individual felon 
only carries into effect what is a necessary con- 
sequence of preceding circumstances" (/. c). 

The subject of Moral Statistics is so vast 
that we can not possibly be expected to treat it 
here exhaustively. Nor is this necessary, as 
will be evident from the following reflections, 
which go to show how unjustly Moral Statis- 
tics are adduced as an argument against free 
will. 

First of all, Moral Statistics, as Statistics in 
general, record only external actions, and for 
the most part only such of these as for some 
reason or other become prominent and attract 
public attention. Now such external actions 
may in the case of one individual be preceded 
by a long series of internal struggles against the 
temptation, while in the case of another they 
are the result of a rather quick, though free, 



The Basis of Morality JJ 

determination, and in the case of a third the 
inevitable outcome of a sudden impulse or men- 
tal derangement. Adding such external actions 
indiscriminately — and Moral Statistics cannot 
do otherwise — is really like adding apples, 
peaches, and railroad cars. In discussing free 
will we are, as we have repeatedly insisted, 
mainly concerned with the internal acts of the 
will, and these must of their very nature remain 
unrecorded in Moral Statistics ; their records are 
found in the testimony of our own conscious- 
ness and the consent of mankind, which distin- 
guishes clearly between deliberate and indelib- 
erate acts. 

Secondly, it must be borne in mind that it is 
very difficult to compile statistics of any kind, 
as is well known and best appreciated by those 
who have been engaged in work of that kind. 
In particular, Moral Statistics, as a science, is 
barely out of its infancy. But it is hardly " sci- 
entific " to draw an inference from so imperfect 
a science against a fact attested by our con- 
sciousness and the universal consent of man- 
kind. 

Thirdly, the regularity, which is supposed to 
exist between certain social conditions and cer- 
tain crimes or other actions of men, is very 
imperfect. If these actions were really the in- 
evitable result of antecedent conditions in the 
deterministic sense, their regularity should be 

6 



78 Free Will 

that of the phenomena of Physics and Chemis- 
try, and we should, at least ideally, be able to 
determine by a mathematical formula which ac- 
tion is sure to result from given circumstances. 
Now Moral Statistics as a matter of fact do 
not, and for the reasons pointed out above, 
cannot show such regularity. As Mansel 
(quoted by Fr. Maher, /. c, p. 422) points out: 
" It is precisely because individual actions are 
not reducible to any fixed law, or capable of 
representation by any numerical calculation, 
that statistical averages acquire their value as 
substitutes." Determinism, if true, involves at 
least ideally mathematical regularity between 
social conditions as motives and actions of men 
as their inevitable results ; but of this there is 
so far not even the faintest shadow. 

Fourthly, that regularity which Moral Sta- 
tistics really exhibit, is quite compatible with 
freedom. An action for which a man has no 
motive will not be performed; and if a whole 
class of people should, on account of their social 
conditions, have no motive to perform such an 
action, that action will not be performed by any 
one of them. A' ice versa, if social conditions 
are such as to offer inducements to a whole class 
of people for the performance of a certain ac- 
tion, many will most probably perform that ac- 
tion. This accounts for many regularities in 



The Basis of Morality 79 

the actions of men, without in the least infring- 
ing on their liberty. 

Thus for instance there is nothing surprising 
in the fact that poor people are rarely found 
guilty of stealing on a large scale, of ruining 
thousands by a stroke of their pen, just as we 
do not wonder at the fact that the rich are 
rarely found guilty of petty theft. On account 
of their social conditions neither of the two 
classes have as a rule motives for said ac- 
tions: hence these regularities. — Again that 
the wage-earner is rarely, if ever engaged in 
gigantic speculations in the stock-market, most 
assuredly constitutes a regularity, just as does 
the fact that few of the wealthier class are 
found handling the spade and carrying their 
dinner-pails. No one could reasonably con- 
clude anything against freedom from such 
regularities. Their logical value amounts to 
no more than if you were to argue from the 
regularity of our wearing heavier clothes in 
winter than in summer. 

Admitting further the fact, as we have done 
emphatically, that motives influence our will, 
although they do not inexorably determine it 
— there is indeed a great probability that when 
social conditions offer to a whole class of 
people an inducement for a certain line of 
action, many of that class will yield to its in- 



8o * Free Will 

fluence. And although this yielding was free, 
a certain regularity will be the result. 

Moral Statistics, then, in their last analysis 
show nothing that can reasonably be considered 
a valid proof against free will. At best they 
emphasize the limitations of free will. A more 
thorough treatment of the subject of Moral 
Statistics may be found in the Sthnmen aits 
Maria Laach, 1882, I, p. 345 sq., and in the 
excellent work of Dr. C. Gutberlet, Die Willcns- 
freiheit und Hire Gegncr, 2 ed., p. 41-120. 

Capping the Climax. 
"Free Will Makes Moral Law Impossible." 

We said above that there are some deter- 
minists — who deny what is otherwise gener- 
ally conceded as self-evident, namely, that free 
will is the necessary basis of morality. Hence 
they claim that our moral argument is based 
on the false assumption that the denial of free- 
dom cuts the root of morality. The writer on 
free will in the Encyclopedia Americana belongs 
to this class of adversaries. In fact, he caps 
the climax when he retorts the argument saying: 
" So far from determinism making moral law 
im]X)ssible, free will makes it impossible. If 
volition can perpetually nullify the action of mo- 
tive, there is a fatal breach in the continuity of 
cause and effect; there can be no calculable se- 
quence of action and therefore no law." 



The Basis of Morality 81 

From this and other previous quotations it is 
evident, that the writer of this article has not 
directed his attack against the real doctrine of 
free will, but has caricatured this doctrine in 
the phrases " nullifying the action of motive," 
" willing without motive," " causeless acts." 

After all that has been said on this subject 
no further remarks are necessary, and we can 
dismiss such suppositions as, what they really 
are, a mere caricature. 

Further, the notions of morality which the 
writer has, are something altogether different 
from those held by ordinary mortals. They 
seem to coincide with the views expressed in 
the article on " Ethics " in the same Ency- 
clopedia. We read there : " Indeed, it is now 
clear that the further development of the 
science of ethics waits upon the more thorough 
clearing up o-f the evolutionary ideas . . . 
Through the conception of evolution it is prob- 
able that ethics will be emancipated from the 
survival of the idea that it is an art whose 
business it is to lay down rules . . . The 
coincidence of the evolutionary tendency with 
the growth of democracy will relieve ethics in 
its philosophic aspects from its dependence 
upon fixed values, ideals, standards and laws, and 
constitute ethics more and more a working 
method for the self-regulation of the individual 
and of society." 



82 Free Will 

Of course, if such are the notions of mo- 
rality and if free will is really a power " per- 
petually nullifying the action of motive," then 
most assuredly " so far from determinism 
making moral law impossible, free will makes 
it impossible." That is what we call capping 
the climax — of absurdity. 

Determinism: A Perfect Mechanical Fit, a Bad 
Moral Fit. 

We must bring our discussion of the moral 
aspect of free will to a close, though a great 
many things have remained unsaid. Pro- 
fessor James, as stated before, defends the 
doctrine of free will on ethical grounds in 
spite of his metaphysical speculations con- 
cerning the evidence of introspection, and in 
spite of his " scientific " convictions which 
favor determinism as "a perfect mechanical 
fit for the rest of the universe." But he rea- 
lizes that determinism is " a bad moral tit." 
The moral aspect of free will must indeed be 
a very strong one, if it can triumph over such 
difficulties. We can, therefore, do no better 
than conclude with a passage from James, 
especially as it brings out a phase of the 
moral argument which we had no time to ex- 
plain. I shall quote it without comment ; for 
the quotation itself I am again indebted to Fr. 
Maher (/. c, p. 401). 



The Basis of Morality 83 

" Some regrets are pretty obstinate and hard 
to stifle, — regrets for acts of wanton cruelty 
or treachery, for example, whether performed 
by others or by ourselves. Hardly any one 
can remain entirely optimistic after reading 
the confession of the murderer at Brockton the 
other day; how to get rid of the wife whose 
continued existence bored him, he inveigled 
her into a desert spot, shot her four times, and 
then as she lay on the ground and said to him, 
1 You didn't do it on purpose, did you, dear ? ' 
replied, ' No, I didn't do it on purpose/ as he 
raised a rock and smashed her skull. Such an 
occurrence with the mild sentence and self-satis- 
faction of the prisoner, is a field for a crop of re- 
grets, which one need not take up in detail. 
We feel that though a perfect mechanical fit 
for the rest of the universe, it is a bad moral 
fit, and that something else would have been 
really better in its place. But for the deter- 
ministic philosophy the murder, the sentence, 
and the prisoner's optimism were all neces- 
sary from eternity; and nothing else for a 
moment had a ghost of a chance of being 
put into their place. To admit such a choice, 
the determinists tell us, would be to make a 
suicide of reason ; so we must steel our hearts 
against the thought. . . . (Yet) Determin- 
ism in denying that anything else can be in- 
stead of the murder, virtually defines the uni- 



84 Free Will 

verse as a place in which what ought to be is 
impossible" (/. c). 

The Teleological Proof of Free Will. 

Now let us proceed to the third and last 
proof of free will, which we have styled the 
" teleological argument." It is a specimen of 
a Scholastic a-priori proof. You need not be 
afraid that I will envelop you in a cloud of 
metaphysical dust. Ever since the Hegelian 
school of Philosophy brought the very name 
of " Metaphysics " into disrepute, men who 
have the normal use of their faculties have be- 
come horrified at the term " a-priori." Fr. 
Hammerstein, S. J., in his book, Foundations 
of Faith (Part I, p. 12), has admirably char- 
acterized this Hegelian caricature of a real " a- 
priori proof," and I cannot refrain from quot- 
ing it, in order to emphasize, what you must 
not expect. Fr. Hammerstein does this by 
telling a little story, which, however, he does 
not offer as serious history. He hits the Ger- 
mans hard, but of course those meant are only 
the German Hegelians, an everlasting disgrace 
to the German nation. 

Fr. Hammerstein's Story. 

" A Frenchman, an Englishman, and a Ger- 
man were commissioned to write a work on 
the camel. How did they set about it? The 



Complement of Man's Rational Nature 85 

Frenchman hied him to Paris, studied the 
camel in the Zoological Gardens there, and in 
a short space of time had issued a very reada- 
ble pamphlet on the subject. The Englishman 
made his way to Africa, the home of the camel, 
and, after spending several years there, pub- 
lished in a profound work the result of his ob- 
servations. And the German? The German, 
sir, retired to his study, and there resting his 
head on both arms that he might think with- 
out distraction, meditated on the true inward- 
ness of the camel. The outcome of these re- 
flections aided, perhaps, by a careful use of a 
large library, appears as a book in which he 
reaches the conclusion that it cannot be posi- 
tively ascertained whether or not the camel 
actually exists." 

An imitation of this Hegelian method, ap- 
plied to the question of free will, we have seen 
in the introduction to the article of free will in 
the Encyclopedia Americana — and that is 
real history. We, in our a-priori argument 
do nothing of the kind. We argue from the 
intellectual nature of man, as experience re- 
veals him to us, and we claim that this intel- 
lectual nature calls for freedom of his will. 

You will readily admit that the nature of 
man would be incomplete if he had only un- 
derstanding and no will. Mind, I do not say 
" free will," but simply will. Of what use 



86 Free Will 

would it be to man to be capable of intellec- 
tually grasping what is good for him, if he 
had no appetitive faculty to strive after this 
apprehended good? Alan endowed with intel- 
lect but without will is what a bird would be 
without wings. Man's intellect, therefore, pos- 
tulates will. Now this inference from intellect 
to will is only preparatory to my proof for free 
will. 

Free Will the Necessary Complement of Man's Rational 
Nature. 

The argument, then, is this : Owing to his 
rational nature, man is capable of objectively 
indifferent judgments, i. e. } of judgments which 
exhibit motives both for striving after and for 
rejecting any particular line of action. But 
these objectively indifferent judgments are to 
no purpose, unless man's rational appetency or 
will is actively indifferent, i. e., unless his will 
is free. Therefore man's will is free. 

The major proposition of this syllogism 
needs no further comment, as I have explained 
and proved it sufficiently when speaking on the 
conditions for free choice. Not only is man ca- 
pable of objectively indifferent judgments, but 
all his judgments referring to any finite good 
are objectively indifferent, at least virtually and 
equivalently. 

In the minor proposition we claim that this 



Complement of Man's Rational Nature 87 

objective indifference of the judgment calls for 
active indifference or freedom of the will. 
Before proving it, let me illustrate its mean- 
ing. 

The Watch Without Face and Hands. 

Suppose you had never seen a watch. You 
come into a jewelry store and see there a clever 
artificer putting together the parts of a pecul- 
iar mechanical device, .which we now call a 
watch. He has finished it all except that he 
has not yet added face and hands. Studying 
this peculiar machine you come to the conclu- 
sion that its various parts are so arranged as 
to move a hand, if there were any, once in 
twelve hours over a dial, if this again were 
added. You turn to the artisan and tell him 
of your conclusion, asking him, whether he is 
not going to finish his work by adding face 
and hands. To your surprise he answers No. 
You insist that everything in the machine points 
to a face and hands as complementary parts 
without which the machine must remain in- 
complete. He answers that yours is an a-priori 
speculation which he is not going to realize. 
Urging your point you say that perhaps only 
this individual machine is to remain without 
face and hands, and there might be sufficient 
reason for that. He replies, that he has made 
such mechanical devices by the thousands, but 



88 Free Will 

all without face and hands ; and he shows you 
all the would-be watches he has stored up for 
sale, emphasizing that neither he nor anybody 
else is going to realize your a-priori speculation. 
What would you think of such an artificer, 
and what of such a machine? The former is 
foolish and the latter is incomplete, telling of 
the folly of its maker. I am sure you realize 
the drift of my argument for free will. 

Man is a Work of Art. 

Man is a work of art. As far as my argu- 
ment is concerned I do not care whether you 
admit or no that God is the artist from whose 
hands he proceeded. Study his intellectual na- 
ture. He is capable of grasping the end as 
end, and means as means. Whenever the end 
is a finite good, he realizes its desirability and 
its non-necessity. He realizes that there are, 
for the most part, various means to these ends, 
each of them leading to the end, none of them 
in particular necessary. You ask the artist 
from whose hands man proceeded : " Has this 
intellectual being the power to choose between 
the various means?" The artist answers: 
" No, he is necessitated in all his actions." 
You urge: "Of what use is it to man that 
he can intellectually weigh the motives for and 
against an action? If his judgment is objec- 



Complement of Man's Rational Nature 89 

tively indifferent, why is his will inexorably 
determined?" The artist answers that yours 
is an a priori speculation ; the fact is, that man's 
will is not free. What do you think of the 
artist, and what of the work of his hands? 
The former is foolish and the latter is just as 
incomplete as the watch without face and hands. 
I said that the intellectual nature of man 
would be to no purpose without freedom of 
the will. But let me, for the moment, play the 
part of the pessimist. Man's intellectual na- 
ture, it is true, is not to the purpose which it 
seems to have ; nevertheless it is to some pur- 
pose, viz., to make man feel miserable. The 
king of visible creation, studying that wonder- 
ful endowment of his by which he is distin- 
guished from the brute, realizes on the one 
hand, that he should be the master of his own 
actions, on the other hand that as a matter 
of fact he is like the brute, the slave of the 
greater momentary attraction. He becomes 
painfully aware that what he ought to do is 
impossible, that virtue and vice are fated both 
in himself and his fellow creatures, that he 
is a king without a crown, and this adds 
to the plaintive dirge of human misery. Now 
I am not a pessimist, nor an optimist, but a 
rational creature, and I think it lawful to con- 
clude the fact of freedom, if the nature of 



90 Free Will 

man shows that he should be free, and that 
without free will man would be the most mis- 
erable of creatures. 

But what if there exists an all-wise and all- 
loving God! Remember that the existence of 
God can be demonstrated completely without 
using the free will of man as a premise. If 
there is a God, He must be all-loving and all-wise. 
And if God is all-loving and all-wise, He cannot 
create an intellectual being, His very image 
and likeness, without that endowment which is 
necessary to complete its intellectual nature. 
God cannot distort His own image, He cannot 
create rational man without free will. 

The Argument Ostracised. 

Now what do the determinists say to this 
argument? They ignore it. We live in an era 
of positive facts; men are so busy measuring 
everything in terms of matter and motion that 
they have neither time nor appreciation for a- 
priori reasonings, unless forsooth they can em- 
ploy them a la Hegel, to dispute inconvenient 
facts. Thus it has come to pass that this time- 
honored Scholastic argument has been com- 
pletely ostracised from modern philosophical 
literature. 

It is therefore well for us to emphasise its 
value. The Scholastics called it, as they did 
all a-priori proofs, by the name of " demon- 



Complement of Man's Rational Nature 91 

stratio propter quid " in opposition to the moral 
proof, which, being a-posteriori, is known as 
a " demonstratio quia." That is not Ciceronian 
Latin, but it pithily expresses the valuation of 
these two proofs. A-posteriori evidence shows 
that man is free, but it does not reveal the 
root of his freedom ; hence the name " demon- 
stratio quia" {quia = that). The a-priori argu- 
ment, besides showing the " that " also reveals 
the "why and wherefore" i. e., the root of 
freedom ; hence the name " demonstratio propter 
quid" (propter quid = why or wherefore). 
As " science " does not consist in merely re- 
cording and accumulating facts, but inquires 
into their causes, you will not be surprised that 
the a-priori proof for free will was valued high- 
est by the Scholastics, unless of course you 
have the Hegelian caricature of " a-priori 
proof " in mind. But in our " matter-of-fact " 
era the direct and immediate experimental 
proof will be valued more highly than either 
the a-posteriori or a-priori demonstration, and 
hence we put it in the first place. Whilst all 
three proofs establish the doctrine of free will 
beyond all reasonable doubt, each one of them 
has its peculiar value. The first emphasizes 
free will as an experimental fact, the second as 
the indispensable basis of morality, the third as 
the necessary complement of man's rational na- 
ture. 



92 Free Will 

A Theological Difficulty. 

Before dismissing the subject we must briefly 
discuss a difficulty which most naturally finds 
its place here, as in the third argument we 
were led to the consideration of the all-wise 
and all-loving God. It is claimed that free will 
is irreconcilable with God's foreknowledge of 
man's future actions. The problem is indeed 
a puzzle for a beginner in philosophy, and it is 
not easy to make its solution clear to men not 
accustomed to abstract reasoning. A compre- 
hensive treatment of the subject is impossible 
without entering into a number of questions 
proper to Natural Theology. The following 
considerations, therefore, must suffice. 

God foresees our future actions because 
we perform them and not vice versa, i. e., 
it is false to say that we perform these acts 
because God foresees them. To explain: 
Whenever we perform any action, whether 
freely or not, whilst we do so we cannot at the 
same time be not-performing them. Thus 
there is surely a kind of necessity in all our 
actions, even in the freest. But this necessity 
follows and supposes the act: hence in the 
case of a free action, it supposes free choice. 
Such necessity is called " necessitas conse- 
qucns n or "necessitas ex suppositione," i. e., 



! 



Complement of Man's Rational Nati/jre 93 

consequent necessity or necessity arisirig from 
a supposition. The only necessity ^vhich is 
really incompatible with freedom is that which 
precedes the act, i. e., the necessity /which is 
brought to bear on the faculty be) ore per- 
forming the act, and this is called antecedent 
necessity (necessitas antecedens). Now, we 
know on the infallible testimony of conscious- 
ness that we are not governed in the ajj^s of our 
will (i. e., not in all of them) by antecedent 
necessity, but that, on the contrary, we are the 
masters of such actions. Consequent necessity 
is found (in virtue of the principle of contra- 
diction) in all our actions, whether free or not, 
whether present, past, or future. Supposing a 
free action is, has been, or will be freely per- 
formed, it is in virtue of that supposition 
necessary, and hence can be the object of cer- 
tain and infallible knowledge. God's fore- 
knowledge of our future free actions, and the 
infallibility of this foreknowledge does not, 
therefore, affect human liberty. Or does the 
certain knowledge of a past free action of mine 
destroy its liberty f Indeed not; for it was 
not performed because I now know it, but I 
now know it because I performed it. 

Just so it is with God's foreknowledge of our 
future free actions. God foreknows them be- 
cause we are going to perform them, and not 



94 Free 11 ill 

vice versa. The infallibility of God's fore- 
knowledge is therefore quite compatible with our 
freedo: ?. 

This yill become still more evident, if we 
considc that God's knowledge of our future 
free actions is, strictly speaking, not fore- 
knowledge. God's knowledge is eternal and 
as such does not change from foreknowledge 
of the future into knozvledge of the present, 
and then into memory of the past. That would 
be an anthropomorphic view of God's knowl- 
edge. From the arch of eternity — to use a 
beautiful figure of St. Thomas Aquinas — 
past, present and future are equally open to 
God's vision. If we keep in mind this eternity 
and unchangeableness of God's vision on the 
one hand, and on the other the simple distinc- 
tion between antecedent and consequent neces- 
sity, we shall have no difficulty in reconciling 
man's freedom with God's infallible foreknowl- 
edge. 

Cardinal Newman on Difficulties Versus Doubts. 

Of course this and other difficulties of a 
metaphysical nature can be urged further, and 
it is not modern philosophers but the School- 
men, the staunchest defenders of free will, that 
have urged them to a very fine point. Even if 
it is hard for us to follow such speculations ac- 
curately and find our bearings in these upper 






Complement of Man's Rational Nature 05 

regions of Metaphysics unerringly, there it a 
general consideration which solves all such dif- 
ficulties in globo. 

I think it is Cardinal Newman who is cred- 
ited with the wise saying : " Ten thousand 
difficulties do not make a doubt." Let me illus- 
trate its meaning. We all know that a blade 
of grass grows in springtime. You cannot 
deny the fact. But can you explain it? You 
may say that the grass grows by assimilating 
matter from without. But what is assimilation? 
Who can explain its wonderful process? Who 
is able to explain that wonderful microscop- 
ically little being, which we call a living cell, a 
veritable microcosm, full of wonders? As 
long as it remains unexplained, the growth of 
a blade of grass is a mystery. Now suppose a 
metaphysician comes along and informs you of 
his a-priori speculation, namely, that assimila- 
tion is impossible (of course because he fails 
to understand it) ; that consequently a blade of 
grass cannot possibly grow, and therefore does 
not grow. What do you think of this difficulty, 
against what you know to be a fact of every- 
day experience? 

You realize now the wisdom contained in 
Cardinal Newman's saying. Only a fool will 
doubt the growth of a blade of grass because 
he cannot see how it grows. It would be just 
as absurd to let any difficulty, especially of a 



/> Free Will 

metaphysical nature, shake your firm adhesion 
to the doctrine of free will, which, as we have 
seen, is an undeniable experimental fact, the 
indispensable basis of morality, and the neces- 
sary complement of man's rational nature. 



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